"He has no hat." Then seeing in her face that she already,
in this, with a deeper dismay, found a touch of picture,
I quickly added stroke to stroke. "He has red hair, very red,
close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight,
good features and little, rather queer whiskers that are as red
as his hair. His eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look
particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal.
His eyes are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly
that they're rather small and very fixed. His mouth's wide,
and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he's
quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking
like an actor."
"An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least,
than Mrs. Grose at that moment.
"I've never seen one, but so I suppose them. He's tall, active, erect,"
I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman."
My companion's face had blanched as I went on; her round
eyes started and her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?"
she gasped, confounded, stupefied: "a gentleman HE?"
"You know him then?"
She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?"
I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!"
"And dressed--?"
"In somebody's clothes. "They're smart, but they're not his own."
She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They're the master's!"
I caught it up.
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