“I’ve heard of him often enough,” came in the American voice. “But I’ve never seen him.”
“You know him now,” resumed the Englishman, “inside as well as out. French always paints what he sees and always sees what he’s painting.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Let us go,” whispered Marian. But Howard did not heed her.
“I see—a fallen man. He was evidently a real man once; but he sold himself.”
“Yes? Where does it show?”
“He’s got a good mind, this fellow-countryman of yours. There are the eyes of a thinker and a doer. Nothing could have kept him down. His face is almost as relentless as Kitchener’s and fully as aggressive, except that it shows intellect, and Kitchener’s doesn’t. Now note the corners of his eyes, Marshall, and his mouth and nostrils and chin, and you’ll see why he sold himself, and the—the consequences.”
Howard and Marian, fascinated, compelled, looked where the unknown requested.
“I think I see what you mean,” came in Marshall’s voice, laughingly. “But go on.”
“Ah, there it all is—hypocrisy, vanity, lack of principle, and, plainest of all, weakness. It’s a common enough type among your successful men. The man himself is the fixed market price for a certain kind of success. But, according to French, this ambassador of yours seems to know what he has paid; and the knowledge doesn’t make him more content with his bargain. He has more brains than vanity; therefore he’s an unhappy hypocrite instead of a happy self-deceiver.”