Anthony Hope (1863–1933)

For he fought a duel (it was considered highly well-bred of him to waive all question of his rank) with a nobleman, well known in the society of the day, not only for his own merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duel Prince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom, was adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found him a pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but the morning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracted a severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six months after the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to adjust his relations with his wife--who, after another two months, bore an heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon. This lady was the Countess Amelia, whose picture my sister-in-law wished to remove from the drawing-room in Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifth Earl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in the peerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he went back to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne, whereon his progeny in the direct line have sat from then till this very hour- with one short interval. And, finally, if you walk through the picture-galleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty portraits or so of the last century-and-a-half, you will find five or six, including that of the sixth earl, distinguished by long, sharp, straight noses and a quantity of dark-red hair; these five or six have also blue eyes, whereas among the Rassendylls dark eyes are the commoner.

So pretty Rose left us in dudgeon; and Burlesdon, lighting a cigarette, looked at me still with that curious gaze.
'That picture in the paper -' he said.
'Well, what of it? It shows that the King of Ruritania and your humble servant are as like as two peas.'
My brother shook his head. 'I suppose so,' he said. But I should know you from the man in the photograph.'
'And not from the picture in the paper?'
'I should know the photograph from the picture: the picture's very like the photograph, but -'
'Well?
'It's more like you,' said my brother.
My brother is a good man and true so that, for all that he is a married man and mighty fond of his wife, he should know any secret of mine. But this secret was not mine, and I could not tell it to him.
'I don't think it's so much like me as the photograph,' said I boldly. 'But anyhow, Bob, I won't go to Strelsau.'