Page:The Prisoner of Zenda.djvu/326

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
302
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA.

have been. The idea of being an ambassador could scarcely dazzle me. I had been a king!

So pretty Rose left us in dudgeon; and Burlesdon, lighting a cigarette, looked at me still with that curious gaze.

"That picture in the paper——" he said.

"Well, what of it? It shows that the king of Ruritania and your humble servant are as like as two peas."

My brother shook his head.

"I suppose so," he said. "But I should know you from the man in the photograph."

"And not from the picture in the paper?"

"I should know the photograph from the picture: the picture's very like the photograph, but——"

"Well?"

"It's more like you," said my brother.

My brother is a good man and true—so that, for all that he is a married man and mighty fond of his wife, he should know any secret of mine. But this secret was not mine, and I could not tell it to him.