He laughed. "I see. Pictorial, even in this. I like facts before they are varnished. Life can offer a man no greater interest, I consider, than to have a hand in the making of history."
She began to regard him with some faint curiosity. He might be mercenary, as Mrs. Shaw suggested; he might be a number of bad things, besides possessing a frightful upper lip. But, at least, he was no fainéant; at least, he was made of a very different paste from most of the young men who flocked around her aunt in the hunting-field, and dropped in afterwards to drink curaçoa. Of course, the peerless Wybrowe was different. He did not do much now, it is true; but he had been a soldier; be had hunted lions in Africa; and so splendid a piece of humanity could not be judged by ordinary, rules. No comparison between Lord Robert and him was possible. But Lord Robert, as an intellectual study, held her attention. He was better worth it than any number of Captain Draysons.
That gallant officer was devoting himself to the handsome Miss Palliser, from whom he had been separated at dinner, and who had vainly endeavoured to "make some running" with Lord Robert, seated between her and their hostess. He snapped at the beauty politely, after his fashion, but it was very clear that his ears, like his eyes, were more occupied with the heiress opposite. Miss Palliser was not used to be so treated; she turned round, and delivered herself over to the flirtaceous mercy of General Wargrave on her other side. But the elderly lady-killer was only employed as a stop-gap. Now, after dinner, she and Drayson were deep in conversation upon
