Rosa Praed

The Insane Root Rosa Praed

Book Excerpt: ...second reception-room idly sniffing at a bouquet of orchids and sprigs of scented verbena. Here also, as he waited, an illustrator might have found subject and opportunity. In odd contrast to his cousin the doctor, striking as was the personality of each, Ruel Bey had the face and form of a Hermes--the Apollos seem mostly insufficiently virile for comparison. One could, however, imagine Ruel Bey with winged feet, and the muscular development presumably to be associated with an Olympian messenger. Certainly he might have been modelled as a Hermes, save for his Bond Street get-up, his moustache and the fez. The fez, however, gave a certain outlandish distinction, and its deep red enhanced the brilliancy of his dark eyes, the clearness of his olive skin, and the sheen of a few curling tendrils of dark hair showing beneath it on neck and brow. As one looked at him one thought instinctively of grape leaves, of honey-throated song, of the love of women, and the glory of young-limbed strength. Yet though here was t..