One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
Clanconan, ‘now a visitor to our town’; and his deeds were
accordant with his birth. Such writing was enough to send
Dudley an eager listener to Colney Durance. What a people!
Mr. Dartrey Fenellan’s card compelled Dudley presently
to receive him.
Dartrey, not debarred by considerations, that an allusion
to Miss Radnor could be conveyed only in the most delicately
obscure manner, spared him no more than the plain
English of his relations with her. Requested to come to the
Club, at a certain hour of the afternoon, that he might hear
Major Worrell’s personal contradiction of scandal involving
the young lady’s name, together with his apology, etc., Dudley
declined: and he was obliged to do it curtly; words were wanting.
They are hard to find for wounded sentiments rendered
complex by an infusion of policy. His present mood, with
the something new to digest, held the going to Major Worrell
a wrong step; he behaved as if the speaking to Dartrey
Fenellan pledged him hardly less. And besides he had a physical
abhorrence, under dictate of moral reprobation, of the
broad-shouldered sinewy man, whose look of wiry alertness
pictured the previous day’s gory gutters.
Dartrey set sharp eyes on him for an instant, bowed; and
went.
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