He looked at the crumbling grave with a passing shadow in his clever
and worldly eyes, and composed himself to await his friend's
pleasure.

In his way he must have been a philosopher. His attitude did not
suggest that he was bored, and yet it was obvious that he was
eminently out of place in this remote spot. He had nothing in
common, for instance, with River Andrew, and politely yawned that
reminiscent fish-curer into silence. His very clothes were of a cut
and fashion never before seen in Farlingford. He wore them, too,
with an air rarely assumed even in the streets of Ipswich.

Men still dressed with care at this time; for d'Orsay was not yet
dead, though his fame was tarnished. Mr. Dormer Colville was not a
dandy, however. He was too clever to go to that extreme and too
wise not to be within reach of it in an age when great tailors were
great men, and it was quite easy to make a reputation by clothes
alone.

Not only was his dress too fine for Farlingford, but his personality
was not in tune with this forgotten end of England. His movements
were too quick for a slow-moving race of men; no fools, and wiser
than their midland brethren; slow because they had yet to make sure
that a better way of life had been discovered than that way in which
their Saxon forefathers had always walked.

Colville seemed to look at the world with an exploiting eye. He had
a speculative mind. Had he lived at the end of the Victorian era
instead of the beginning he might have been a notable financier.