But this stranger was finer than any of them.
Suddenly he looked at me for the first time, and I saw his face change.
Some wave of emotion passed over it, troubling its gay serenity. His
lips trembled. And then he was himself again.
"Pardon me," he said. "For the moment I thought I had seen a ghost--as
though ghosts apparelled themselves like the rose! You are very like
some one I once knew who is now dead. I am so glad I have been able to
help your poor dog."
I stammered like the rustic Richard Dawson had taken me for. Who could
this finest of fine gentlemen be?
CHAPTER XI
THE FRIEND
He was tall and slim, and had an elegance of air which really does not
seem to belong to our age. His face was bronzed and his eyes were of so
dark a grey--I know since that they are grey--that I thought them black
that evening in the shadow of the woods.
He had a little black moustache, and, in odd contrast to it and his look
of youth, his hair was quite white. It was perhaps that which gave him
his air of elegance. He was really like a powdered gallant of the last
century rather than a gentleman of this. But his speech was of this, and
very Irish as well.
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