She herself observed him much more closely than before, the mingling in his face of a kind of concealed impatience, an eagerness held in chains and expressed by his slight perpetual frown, with a courtesy and urbanity generally gay or bantering, but at times, and by flashes--or so it seemed to her--dipped in a sudden, profound melancholy, like a quenched light.

He held himself sharply erect, and in his plain naval uniform, with the three Commander's stripes on the sleeve, made, in her eyes, an even more distinguished figure than the gallant and decorated hero on his left, with whom Helena seemed to be so particularly engaged, "prig" though she had dubbed him.
As to Lady Cynthia's effect upon her host, Mrs.Friend could not make up her mind.

He seemed attentive or amused while she chatted to him; but towards the end their conversation languished a good deal, and Lady Cynthia must needs fall back on the stubby-haired boy to her right, who was learning agency business with Mr.Parish.She smiled at him also, for it was her business, Mrs.Friend thought, to smile at everybody, but it was an absent-minded smile.
"You don't know Lord Buntingford ?" said Mr.Alcott's rather muffled voice beside her.
Mrs.Friend turned hastily.
"No--I never saw him till this afternoon." "He isn't easy to know.

I know him very little, though he gave me this living, and I have business with him, of course, occasionally.

But this I do know, the world is uncommonly full of people--don't you find it so ?--who say 'I go, Sir'-- and don't go.