He was no
longer a reflecting, reasoning young man, with a tolerably firm will
and fixed purposes, but a mere embodied emotion, and that of the
vaguest, swaying in dependence on another's personality.
Olga Hannaford joined them. Olga, for all the various charms of her
face, had never thus affected him. But then, he had known her a few
years ago, when, as something between child and woman, she had
little power to interest an imaginative boy, whose ideal was some
actress seen only in a photograph, or some great lady on her travels
glimpsed as he strayed about Geneva. She, in turn, regarded him with
the coolest friendliness, her own imagination busy with far other
figures than that of a would-be Government clerk.
Just as tea was being served, there sounded a voice welcome to no
one present, that of Lee Hannaford. He came forward with his wonted
air of preoccupation; a well-built man, in the prime of life,
carefully dressed, his lips close-set, his eyes seemingly vacant,
but in reality very attentive; a pinched ironical smile meant for
cordiality. After greetings, he stood before Miss Derwent's chair
conversing with her; a cup of tea in his steady hand, his body just
bent, his forehead curiously wrinkled--a habit of his when he
talked for civility's sake and nothing else. Hannaford could never
be at ease in the presence of his wife and daughter if others were
there to observe him; he avoided speaking to them, or, if obliged,
did so with awkward formality.
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