taste. To me, the subtle beauty of line or colour, the singing music
of a phrase, were of more account than the reek of stables or the
whooping clamour and excitement of the hunting-field, my joys being
rather raptures of the soul than the more material pleasures of the
flesh.

"And was it," I asked myself, "was it essential to exchange buffets
with a 'Camberwell Chicken,' to shoot and be shot at, to spur sweating
and unwilling horses over dangerous fences--were such things truly
necessary to prove one's manhood? Assuredly not! And yet--'Ladylike!'"

Moved by a sudden impulse I turned from the lattice to the elegant
luxuriousness of my bedchamber, its soft carpets, rich hangings and
exquisite harmonies of colour; and coming before the cheval mirror I
stood to view and examine myself as I had never done hitherto,
surveying my reflection not with the accustomed eyes of Peregrine
Vereker, but rather with the coldly appraising eyes of a stranger, and
beheld this:

A youthful, slender person of no great stature, clothed in garments
elegantly unostentatious.

His face grave and of a saturnine cast--but the features fairly
regular.

His complexion sallow--but clear and without blemish.

His hair rather too long--but dark and crisp-curled.

His brow a little too prominent--but high and broad.