the moustache was long and exiguous. His blue eyes were never still, and
they always avoided any prolonged encounter with other eyes. He was a
personable specimen of the clever and successful manufacturer. His
clothes were well cut, the necktie of a discreet smartness. His
grandfather had begun life as a working potter; nevertheless John
Stanway spoke easily and correctly in a refined variety of the broad
Five Towns accent; he could open a door for a lady, and was noted for
his neatness in compliment.

It was his ambition always to be calm, oracular, weighty; always to be
sure of himself; but his temperament was incurably nervous, restless,
and impulsive. He could not be still, he could not wait. Instinct drove
him to action for the sake of action, instinct made him seek continually
for notice, prominence, comment. These fundamental appetites had urged
him into public life--to the Borough Council and the Committee of the
Wedgwood Institution. He often affected to be buried in cogitation upon
municipal and private business affairs, when in fact his attention was
disengaged and watchful. Leonora knew that this was so to-night. The
idea of his duplicity took possession of her mind. Deeps yawned before
her, deeps that swallowed up the solid and charming house and the
comfortable family existence, as she glanced at that face at once
strange and familiar to her. 'Is it all right?' she kept thinking. 'Is
John all that he seems? I wonder whether he has ever committed murder.'
Yes, even this absurd thought, which she knew to be absurd, crossed her
mind.

'Where's Rose?' he demanded suddenly in the depressing silence of the
tea-table, as if he had just discovered the absence of his second
daughter.