She did not exactly know what a swanker
was, probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she
read enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover that
her cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an
unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of intelligence, yet
cunning withal, and that he and his associates were responsible for most
of the misery, disease, poverty, and ignorance with which the country was
afflicted; never, except in one or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which
she had always supposed to have be written in a spirit of exaggerated
Oriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human being. And
this monster was going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few short
minutes. She would know him at once; he would have the dark beetling
brows, the quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile that
always characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late to
escape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm.
It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with a
snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. "A serpent in
duckling's plumage," was her private comment; merciful chance had
revealed him to her in his true colours.
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