He could see no resemblance at all to himself in the handsome, hard-mouthed, large man, with the clean face and the fringe of fair whiskers, and the black cravat, and the overbearing look.
"Your eyes are set in the same way," she said. "And your brows are the same. But your mouth is not so tight."
"I don't like what I heard of him, anyhow," said Jack. "A puritanical surgeon! Turn over."
She turned over and gave a low cry. There was a photograph of a young elegant with drooping black moustachios, and mutton-chop side whiskers, and large, languid, black eyes, leaning languidly and swinging a cane. Over the top was written, in a weird handwriting: The Honourable George Rath, blasted father of
This skull and cross-bones was repeated on the other margins of the photograph.
"Oh!" said Mary, covering her face with her hands.
Jack's face was a study. Mary had evidently recognised the photograph of her father as a young man. Yet Jack could not help smiling at the skull and cross-bones, in connection with the Bulwer Lytton young elegant, and the man under the green umbrella.
"My God!" he thought to himself. "All that happens in a generation! From that sniffy young dude to that fellow here who made this farm, and Mary with her face in her hands!"
He could not help smiling to himself.