But
this secret was not mine, and I could not tell it to him.
"I don't think it's so much like me as the photograph," said I boldly.
"But, anyhow, Bob, I won't go to Strelsau."
"No, don't go to Strelsau, Rudolf," said he.
And whether he suspects anything, or has a glimmer of the truth, I do
not know. If he has, he keeps it to himself, and he and I never refer to
it. And we let Sir Jacob Borrodaile find another attache.
Since all these events whose history I have set down happened I have
lived a very quiet life at a small house which I have taken in the
country. The ordinary ambitions and aims of men in my position seem to
me dull and unattractive. I have little fancy for the whirl of society,
and none for the jostle of politics. Lady Burlesdon utterly despairs of
me; my neighbours think me an indolent, dreamy, unsociable fellow. Yet
I am a young man; and sometimes I have a fancy--the superstitious would
call it a presentiment--that my part in life is not yet altogether
played; that, somehow and some day, I shall mix again in great affairs,
I shall again spin policies in a busy brain, match my wits against my
enemies', brace my muscles to fight a good fight and strike stout blows.
Such is the tissue of my thoughts as, with gun or rod in hand, I wander
through the woods or by the side of the stream.
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