It was something as exciting in a way, and even touching in its foredoomed futility, as the efforts at moral intercourse between the inhabitants of remote planets.

But this grotesque incarnation of humanitarian passion appealed somehow, to one's imagination.

At last Michaelis rose, and taking the great lady's extended hand, shook it, retained it for a moment in his great cushioned palm with unembarrassed friendliness, and turned upon the semi-private nook of the drawing-room his back, vast and square, and as if distended under the short tweed jacket.

Glancing about in serene benevolence, he waddled along to the distant door between the knots of other visitors.
The murmur of conversations paused on his passage.

He smiled innocently at a tall, brilliant girl, whose eyes met his accidentally, and went out unconscious of the glances following him across the room.