Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. III, 1872.djvu/345

Rh and neighbourhood. Will suspected that the man had been drinking and was considering how to shake him off when Raffles said—

"I've been abroad myself, Mr Ladislaw—I've seen the world—used to parley-vous a little. It was at Boulogne I saw your father—a most uncommon likeness you are of him, by Jove! mouth—nose—eyes—hair turned off your brow just like his—a little in the foreign style. John Bull doesn't do much of that. But your father was very ill when I saw him. Lord, lord! hands you might see through. You were a small youngster then. Did he get well?"

"No," said Will, curtly.

"Ah! Well! I've often wondered what became of your mother. She ran away from her friends when she was a young lass—a proud-spirited lass, and pretty, by Jove! I knew the reason why she ran away," said Raffles, winking slowly as he looked sideways at Will.

"You know nothing dishonourable of her, sir," said Will, turning on him rather savagely. But Mr Raffles just now was not sensitive to shades of manner.

"Not a bit!" said he, tossing his head decisively "She was a little too honourable to like her friends—that was it!" Here Raffles again winked slowly.