No one had ever seen him show feeling.

If it was a mask, he had worn it with a curious consistency: it had been with him as a child, at school, at college, and he had brought it back again to the town where he was born.

It had effectually prevented his being popular, but it had made him--with his foppishness and his originality--an object of perpetual interest.

Few men had ventured to cross swords with him.

He left his fellow-citizens very much alone.