He turned and exchanged a glance with Dormer Colville, who stood at his side leaning on his gold-headed cane.
Colville's expression seemed to say: "I told you what it would be.

But wait: there is more to come." His affable eyes made a round of the watching faces, and even exchanged a sympathetic smile with some, as if to hint that his clothes were only fine because he belonged to a fine generation, but that his heart was as human as any beating under a homelier coat.
"There's Passen," said one woman to another, behind the corner of her apron, within Colville's hearing.

"It takes a deal to bring him out o' doors nowadays, and little Sep and--Miss Miriam." Dormer Colville heard the words.

And he heard something unspoken in the pause before the mention of the last name.

He did not look at once in the direction indicated by a jerk of the speaker's thumb, but waited until a change of position enabled him to turn his head without undue curiosity.