the keenest ear - of a French accent. To ears less keen it
would merely seem that he articulated with a precision so
singular as to verge on pedantry.

The light falling full upon his profile revealed the rather
singular countenance that was his own. It was not in any
remarkable beauty that its distinction lay, for by the canons
of beauty that prevail it was not beautiful. The features
were irregular and inclined to harshness, the nose was too
abruptly arched, the chin too long and square, the complexion
too pallid. Yet a certain dignity haunted that youthful face,
of such a quality as to stamp it upon the memory of the merest
passer-by. The mouth was difficult to read and full of
contradictions; the lips were full and red, and you would
declare them the lips of a sensualist but for the line of
stern, almost grim, determination in which they met; and yet,
somewhere behind that grimness, there appeared to lurk a
haunting whimsicality; a smile seemed ever to impend, but
whether sweet or bitter none could have told until it broke.
The eyes were as remarkable; wide-set and slow-moving, as
becomes the eyes of an observant man, they were of an almost
greenish color, and so level in their ordinary glance as to
seem imbued with an uncanny penetration. His hair - he dared
to wear his own, and clubbed it in a broad ribbon of watered
silk - was almost of the hue of bronze, with here and there a
glint of gold, and as luxuriant as any wig.

For the rest, he was scarcely above the middle height, of an
almost frail but very graceful slenderness, and very graceful,
too, in all his movements. In dress he was supremely elegant,