Page:Under two flags ouida.djvu/13

Rh dressed, and having half an hour before plashed like a water-dog out of the bath, as big as a small pond, in the dressing-chamber beyond, was the Hon, Bertie himself, second son of Viscount Royallieu, known generally in the Brigades as ’Beauty.' The appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. When the smoke cleared away that was circling round him out of a great meerschaum-bowl, it showed a faced of as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, handsome, thoro'bred, languid, nonchalant, with a certain latent recklessness under the impassive calm of habit, and a singular softness given to the large, dark hazel eyes by the unusual length of the lashes over them. His features were exceedingly fair, fair as the fairest girl's; his hair was of the softest, silkiest, brightest chestnut ; his mouth very beautifully shaped; on the whole, with a certain gentle, mournful love-me look that his eyes had with them, it was no wonder that great ladies and gay lionnes alike gave him the palm as the handsomest man in all the Household Regiments—not even excepting that splendid golden-haired Colossus, his oldest friend and closest comrade, known as 'the Seraph.' He looked at the new tops that Rake swung in his hand, and shook his head.

'Better, Rake; but not right yet. Can't you get that-^ tawny colour in the tiger's skin there ? You go so much to brown.' Rake shook his head in turn, as he set down the incorrigible tops beside six pairs of their fellows, and six times six of every other sort of boots that the covert side, the heather, the flat, or the 'sweet shady side of Pall Mall' ever knew.

’Do my best, sir ; but Polish don't come nigh Nature, Mr. Cecil.'

’Goes beyond it, the ladies say ; and to do them justice, they favour it much the most,' laughed Cecil to himself, floating fresh clouds of Turkish about him. 'Willon up?' ’Yes, sir. Come in this minute for orders.'

’How'd Forest King stand the train ? '

’Bright as a bird, sir ; /le never mind nothing. Mother o' Pearl she worretted a little, he says ; she always do, along of the engine noise ; but the King walked in and out just as if the stations were his own stable-yard.'

’He gave them gruel and chilled water after the shaking before he let them go to their corn?'