 quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true that
the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness of the face,
its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn from that? He would
laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. What was it to
him how vile and full of shame it looked? Even if he told them, would they
believe it?
    Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house in
Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were
his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton luxury and
gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly leave his guests and
rush back to town to see that the door had not been tampered with, and that the
picture was still there. What if it should be stolen? The mere thought made him
cold with horror. Surely the world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world
already suspected it.
    For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him. He
was very nearly blackballed at a West End dub of which his birth and social
position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was said that on one
occasion when he was brought by a friend into the smoking-room of the Churchill,
the Duke of Berwick and another gentleman got up in a marked manner and went
out. Curious stories became current about him after he had passed his
twenty-fifth year. It was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign
sailors in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted
with thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His
extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear again in
society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him with a sneer,
or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though they were determined to
discover his secret.
    Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice, and
in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his charming boyish
smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth that seemed never to leave
him, were in themselves a sufficient answer to the calumnies, for so they termed
them, that were circulated about him. It was remarked, however, that some of
those who had been most intimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him.
Women who had wildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure
and set convention
