As he evidently meant to keep his word, Lucian subsided, and gave himself up to observing. The room was conventionally furnished, but he saw on the floor the skin of a black panther, and behind the door the nine-foot spiral ivory horn of a narwhal, trophies which even Whiteley cannot provide. Himself a wanderer, he rejoiced to see such tokens of his host’s pursuits; a sportsman is kin to a sportsman all the world over. From studying the furniture he turned to study Noel Farquhar.
Most people knew the name of the member for Mid-Kent, and his face was tolerably familiar through the slanderous presentations which the papers call portraits. He had been in Parliament for several years, and was supposed to be a coming man. When he got on his legs, members deferred their engagements; his speeches were generally lively, always pithy, and never long, a trinity of virtues rare as the Christian graces, and, like them, culminating in the last. He had the advantage of a good voice and delivery. As a politician he was incorruptible; he would criticise his own party, when it seemed in danger of deviating from that ideal of rectitude which animates the bosom of every British statesman. A Bayard without fear or reproach, a high-souled patriot with a caustic tongue, he had a niche all to himself among parliamentary celebrities.
He stood in his socks only five feet nine, but the width of his shoulders was exceptional, and his frame was lean and hard and supple as a panther’s. Every muscle had been trained and trained again to the pitch of excellency, and every movement had the sure grace of controlled strength. The comeliness of perfect health and physical fitness was his; he diffused a kind of tonic energy which acted on susceptible people almost like an electric current. For the rest, he was the typical Englishman: fair-haired, grey-eyed, sunburnt, pleasant, in spite of the grim curve of cheek and jaw, which matched the almost ominous strength of his physique. Lucian, like other people, would have accepted him for what he seemed, if he had not seen him deliberately reading through his love-letter. As it was, he looked into the fair, open face and knew him for a humbug; though he could not imagine why he should have read it, nor how it could advantage him to befriend a miserable, sordid, reprobate, and degraded outcast such as Lucian de Saumarez.
Dr. Maude came hard on the heels of the returning Simpson; he did not resort to Bob Sawyer’s tactics to increase the reputation of his practice. Farquhar met him in the hall and brought him in, and the patient overheard an edifying fragment of conversation.
“Well, I couldn’t very well leave him out in the road, poor chap, so I had to bring him along.”
“And he will probably recoup himself from your plate-chest.”
“What a cynic you are! I never thought of such a thing,” said Farquhar, laughing.
“Your innocence must stand in your way sometimes, I should think.”
“I never knew it do so. I believe, myself, that trust begets trustworthiness.”
“Ah, you’re a philanthropist,” said Maude, walking into the room. The patient lay quiet, apparently unconscious. “I expected that it was this fellow you’d got hold of,” Maude said, without surprise. “He came to me an hour ago. I told him to go to Alresworth infirmary; I suppose he had an attack while waiting for the ’bus.”