He was not a man to whom the expression of admiration came easily: his long sallow face and distrustful eyes seemed always barricaded against the expansive emotions.
But, where her own influence was concerned, Lily's intuitions sent out thread-like feelers, and as she made room for him on the narrow sofa she was sure he found a dumb pleasure in being near her.

Few women took the trouble to make themselves agreeable to Dorset, and Lily had been kind to him at Bellomont, and was now smiling on him with a divine renewal of kindness.
"Well, here we are, in for another six months of caterwauling," he began complainingly.

"Not a shade of difference between this year and last, except that the women have got new clothes and the singers haven't got new voices.

My wife's musical, you know--puts me through a course of this every winter.

It isn't so bad on Italian nights--then she comes late, and there's time to digest.