Although he was dressed correctly for his part, yet there was an innate incongruity which caused a slight ridiculousness in his appearance.

His nature was clever and separate, he did not fit at all in the conventional occasion.

Yet he subordinated himself to the common idea, travestied himself.
He affected to be quite ordinary, perfectly and marvellously commonplace.

And he did it so well, taking the tone of his surroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary commonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment, disarmed them from attacking his singleness.
Now he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope: but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease.
'I'm sorry we are so late,' he was saying.

'We couldn't find a button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots.