"I understand now," Lord Fairholm said, "the change in your face
which struck me."
"Is my face changed?" Rupert said. "It does not seem to me that I
have changed in face a bit since I joined, six years ago."
"It is not in features, but in expression. You look good tempered
now, Rupert, even merry when you smile, but no man could make a
mistake with you now. There is, when you are not speaking, a sort
of intent look upon your face, intent and determined--the
expression which seems to tell of great danger expected and faced.
No man could have gone through that two months in the dungeon of
Loches and come out unchanged. All the other dangers you have gone
through--and you always seem to be getting into danger of some
kind--were comparatively sharp and sudden, and a sudden peril,
however great, may not leave a permanent mark; but the two months
in that horrible den, from which no other man but yourself would
deem escape possible, could not but change you.
"When you left us, although you were twenty, you were in most
things still a boy; there is nothing boyish about you now. It is
the same material, but it has gone through the fire. You were good
iron, very tough and strong, but you could be bent. Now, Rupert,
you have been tried in the furnace and have come out steel."
"You are very good to say so," Rupert said, smiling, "but I don't
feel all that change which you speak of. I hope that I am just as
much up to a bit of fun as ever I was.
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