window on his left, the thought crossed the mind of his neighbour that
although so fully aware of other people's good looks, the tall
Englishman seemed to be quite unconscious of his own. Yet in truth he
appeared both to her, and to the hotel guests in general, a kind of
heroic creature. In height he towered beside the young or middle-aged
men from Munich, Buda-Pesth, or the north Italian towns, who filled the
_salon_. He had all that athlete could desire in the way of shoulders,
and lean length of body; a finely-carried head, on which the brown hair
was wearing a little thin at the crown, while still irrepressibly
strong and curly round the brow and temple; thick penthouse brows, and
beneath them a pair of greyish eyes which had already made him friends
with the children and the dogs and half the grown-ups in the place. The
Swedish lady admitted--but with no cordiality--that human kindness
could hardly speak more plainly in a human face than from those eyes.
Yet the mouth and chin were thin, strong and determined; so were the
hands. The man's whole aspect, moreover, spoke of assured position, and
of a keen intelligence free from personal pre-occupations, and keeping
a disinterested outlook on the world. The woman who observed him had in
her handbag a book by a Russian lady in which Man, with a capital,
figured either as "a great comic baby," or as the "Man-Beast," invented
for the torment of women. The gentleman before her seemed a little
difficult to fit into either category.

But if she was observing him, he had begun to question her.

"Will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?"

"Certainly. They are the only questions worth asking."

He laughed.