only to 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, with the elegance of
France, that in England would be accounted foppishness. He wore a suit
of dark blue cloth, with white satin linings that were revealed when he
moved; it was heavily laced with gold, and a ramiform pattern broidered
in gold thread ran up the sides of his silk stockings of a paler blue.
Jewels gleamed in the Brussels at his throat, and there were diamond
buckles on his lacquered, red-heeled shoes.

Sir Richard considered him with anxiety and some chagrin. "Justin!" he
cried, a world of reproach in his voice. "What can you need to ponder?"

"Whatever it may be," said Mr. Caryll, "it will be better that I ponder
it now than after I have pledged myself."

"But what is it? What?" demanded the baronet.

"I am marvelling, for one thing, that you should have waited thirty
years."

Sir Rich