Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/55

 "How do I mean?" he said. "Well, it's a bit difficult to explain; I like him, and all that, much better than I expected; but then I expected a lot of gloss, and this fellow has less than none. It's all the jollier—only somehow it doesn't seem quite the thing. Look at his clothes, for instance!"

"He must have picked them up from some tramp and put them on for a joke," said Irralie on the spur. "But I'm glad you like him—and here he is!"

And there he was: in clothes which fitted him uncommonly well to have been picked up in the way suggested, but which looked worse than ever in the full glare of day. He was also unshaven, and a grimy blue from ear to ear; the gross effect, in the words of Mr. Villiers, was decidedly not "quite the thing."

Irralie returned a formal greeting and slipped away; her heart was once more throbbing with the black doubts of the night; and this time it was slowlier stilled. Her father and Fullarton drove off after