He leaned back in a long wicker chair, his head resting upon his hand, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon vacancy.

No man in those days could have resembled less a popular leader of the people.

In appearance he was a typical aristocrat, and his expression, notwithstanding his fine forehead and thoughtful eyes, was marked with a certain simplicity which in his younger days had lured many an inexperienced debater on to ridicule and extinction.

In an intensely curious age, Dartrey was still a man over whose personality controversy raged fiercely.

He was a poet, a dreamer, a writer of elegant prose, an orator, an artist.