To look at the glass had become the nightly
habit of one who gave all the time he could spare from his profession to
hunting in the winter and to racing in the summer.'
The Hon. Hubert Caradoc, an apprentice to the calling of diplomacy, more
completely than any living Caradoc embodied the characteristic strength
and weaknesses of that family. He was of fair height, and wiry build.
His weathered face, under sleek, dark hair, had regular, rather
small features, and wore an expression of alert resolution, masked by
impassivity. Over his inquiring, hazel-grey eyes the lids were almost
religiously kept half drawn. He had been born reticent, and great,
indeed, was the emotion under which he suffered when the whole of his
eyes were visible. His nose was finely chiselled, and had little flesh.
His lips, covered by a small, dark moustache, scarcely opened to emit
his speeches, which were uttered in a voice singularly muffled, yet
unexpectedly quick. The whole personality was that of a man practical,
spirited, guarded, resourceful, with great power of self-control, who
looked at life as if she were a horse under him, to whom he must give
way just so far as was necessary to keep mastery of her. A man to
whom ideas were of no value, except when wedded to immediate action;
essentially neat; demanding to be 'done well,' but capable of stoicism
if necessary; urbane, yet always in readiness to thrust; able only to
condone the failings and to compassionate the kinds of distress which
his own experience had taught him to understand.
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