Lord Erpingham was a cold man, and, like most cold men, ashamed of the evidence of affection.

He greeted Constance very quietly; and, as she thought, slightly: but his eyes turned to her far more often than any friend of Lord Erpingham's might ever have remarked those large round hazel eyes turn to any one before.
When the earl withdrew to adjust his toilet for dinner, Lady Erpingham, as she wiped her eyes, could not help exclaiming to Constance, "Is he not handsome?
What a figure!" Constance was a little addicted to flattery where she liked the one who was to be flattered, and she assented readily enough to the maternal remark.

Hitherto, however, she had not observed anything more in Lord Erpingham than his height and his cloak: as he re-entered and led her to the dining-room she took a better, though still but a casual, survey.
Lord Erpingham was that sort of person of whom _men_ always say, "What a prodigiously fine fellow!" He was above six feet high, stout in proportion: not, indeed, accurately formed, nor graceful in bearing, but quite as much so as a man of six feet high need be.

He had a manly complexion of brown, yellow, and red.

His whiskers were exceedingly large, black, and well arranged.