"Г.К.Честертон. The Scandal of Father Brown " - читать интересную книгу автора

Therefore her outstanding starry blue eyes really struck outwards, as in the
old metaphor that made eyes like Cupid's darts, killing at a distance; but
with an abstract conception of conquest beyond any mere coquetry. Her pale
fair hair, though arranged in a saintly halo, had a look of almost electric
radiation. And when she understood that the stranger before her was Mr Agar
Rock, of the Minneapolis Meteor, her eyes took on themselves the range of
long searchlights, sweeping the horizon of the States.
But in this the lady was mistaken; as she sometimes was. For Agar Rock
was not Agar Rock of the Minneapolis Meteor. He was at that moment merely
Agar Rock; there had surged up in him a great and sincere moral impulsion,
beyond the coarse courage of the interviewer. A feeling profoundly mixed of
a chivalrous and national sensibility to beauty, with an instant itch for
moral action of some definite sort, which was also national, nerved him to
face a great scene; and to deliver a noble insult. He remembered the
original Hypatia, the beautiful Neo - Platonist, and how he had been
thrilled as a boy by Kingsley's romance in which the young monk denounces
her for harlotries and idolatries. He confronted her with an iron gravity
and said:
'If you'll pardon me. Madam, I should like to have a word with you in
private.'
'Well,' she said, sweeping the room with her splendid gaze, 'I don't
know whether you consider this place private.'
Rock also gazed round the room and could see no sign of life less
vegetable than the orange trees, except what looked like a large black
mushroom, which he recognized as the hat of some native priest or other,
stolidly smoking a black local cigar, and otherwise as stagnant as any
vegetable. He looked for a moment at the heavy, expressionless features,
noting the rudeness of that peasant type from which priests so often come,
in Latin and especially Latin - American countries; and lowered his voice a
little as he laughed.
'I don't imagine that Mexican padre knows our language,' he said.
'Catch those lumps of laziness learning any language but their own. Oh, I
can't swear he's a Mexican; he might be anything; mongrel Indian or nigger,
I suppose. But I'll answer for it he's not an American. Our ministries don't
produce that debased type.'
'As a matter of fact,' said the debased type, removing his black cigar,
'I'm English and my name is Brown. But pray let me leave you if you wish to
be private.'
'If you're English,' said Rock warmly, 'you ought to have some normal
Nordic instinct for protesting against all this nonsense. Well, it's enough
to say now that I'm in a position to testify that there's a pretty dangerous
fellow hanging round this place; a tall fellow in a cloak, like those
pictures of crazy poets.'
'Well, you can't go much by that,' said the priest mildly; 'a lot of
people round here use those cloaks, because the chill strikes very suddenly
after sunset.'
Rock darted a dark and doubtful glance at him; as if suspecting some
evasion in the interests of all that was symbolized to him by mushroom hats
and moonshine. 'It wasn't only the cloak,' he growled, 'though it was partly
the way he wore it. The whole look of the fellow was theatrical, down to his