One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
ing their tyrannical Authority for aid. The world will continue
to be indifferent to their view of it and behaviour toward
it until it ceases to encourage the growth of hypocrites.
These are moments when the faces we are observing drop
their charm, showing us our perversion internal, if we could
but reflect, to see it. Very many thousand times above Dudley
Sowerby, Nataly ranked Dartrey Fenellan; and still she looked
at him, where he sat beside Nesta, ungenially, critical of the
very features, jealously in the interests of Dudley; and recollecting,
too, that she had once prayed for one exactly resembling
Dartrey Fenellan to be her Nesta’s husband. But, as she
would have said, that was before the indiscretion of her girl
had shown her to require for her husband a man whose character
and station guaranteed protection instead of inciting
to rebellion. And Dartrey, the loved and prized, was often in
the rebel ranks; he was dissatisfied with matters as they are;
was restless for action, angry with a country denying it to
him; he made enemies, he would surely bring down inquiries
about Nesta’s head, and cause the forgotten or quiescent
to be stirred; he would scarcely be the needed hand for such
a quiver of the lightnings as Nesta was.
Dartrey read Nataly’s brows. This unwonted uncomeliness
of hers was an indication to one or other of our dusky pits,
not a revealing.
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