Baroness Orczy

“ The eyes twinkle at us, the mouth all but speaks, and we know and recognize every detail as true; only the fine, straight brow, the noble forehead, the delicate contour of the nose and jaw puzzle us at times, for those we cannot reconcile with the man's calling or with his namelessness, until we remember his boast in the tavern of the "Lame Cow" on New Year's morning: "My father was one of those who came in English Leicester's train." ”

“ I am strong and she is weak; she has threatened to betray me and my friends and I must protect them and our cause. I have decided to place her there where she cannot harm us, but some one must convey her thither, since I must not appear before her in this matter. Therefore hath my choice fallen on you, sir, for that mission, chiefly because of that instinct which last night told me that I could trust you. If my instinct should prove me wrong, I would kill you for having cheated me, but I would even then not regret what I had done. ”

“ The high roads are not safe. I could not all alone protect the lady against the army of footpads that infest them, I shall have to engage and pay an escort for her all the way. But she shall reach the place to which you desire me to take her, to this I pledge you my word. Beyond that ... well! you have said it yourself, by her knowledge of your secret she has forfeited her own safety; you—her own brother—choose to entrust her to me. The rest lies between you and your honour."
An angry retort once more rose to Nicolaes Beresteyn's lips, but commonsense forced him to check it. ”

“ You are good at guessing—will you guess what would happen to those six men if their conversation last night had been overheard and their secret betrayed."
"The scaffold," said Diogenes laconically.
"And torture."
"Of course. Holland always has taken the lead in civilization of late."
"Torture and death, sir," reiterated Beresteyn vehemently. "There are six men in this city to-day whose lives are at the mercy of one woman."
"Oho! 'twas a woman then who surprised those six men in their endeavour to do good to Holland and to uphold the Faith." ”

“ I have an overwhelming desire to ride on the crest of the waves, rather than to duck under them against my will."
"I hope this intrusion will not retard your work too much, my good Hals," said Beresteyn with somewhat perfunctory solicitude when he saw that the artist finally put his brushes and palette on one side, and in an abstracted manner began to dust a couple of ricketty chairs and then place them close to the stove.
"Oh!" interposed Diogenes airily, "the joy of being of service to so bountiful a patron will more than compensate Frans Hals for this interruption to his work. ”

“ But it is not my business to excuse Nicolaes Beresteyn in this. What guided him solely in his present action was that primary instinct of self-preservation, that sense which animals have without the slightest knowledge or experience on their part and which has made men play at times the part of a hero and at others that of a knave. ”