A rather bored manner and a supercilious air spoiled what would otherwise have been a handsome and attractive face.
After a single remark about the "beastly bore" of military duty, Hopeton ignored Barry, giving such attention as he had to spare from his dinner to a man across the table, with whom, apparently, he had shared some rather exciting social experiences in the city.
For the first half hour of the meal, the conversation was of the most trivial nature, and was to Barry supremely uninteresting.

"Shop talk" was strictly taboo, and also all reference to the war.

The thin stream of conversation that trickled from lip to lip ran the gamut of sport, spiced somewhat highly with society scandal which, even in that little city, appeared to flourish.
To Barry it was as if he were in a strange land and among people of a strange tongue.

Of sport, as understood by these young chaps, he knew little, and of scandal he was entirely innocent; so much so that many of the references that excited the most merriment were to him utterly obscure.

After some attempts to introduce topics of conversation which he thought might be of mutual interest, but which had fallen quite flat, Barry gave up, and sat silent with a desolating sense of loneliness growing upon his spirit.
"After the port," when smoking was permitted, he was offered a cigarette by Hopeton, and surprised that young man mightily by saying that he never smoked.