I considered a shipwreck as an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.
Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly about and never spoke unless addressed directly by one of the ladies present.
There were more than a dozen people in that drawing-room, mostly women eating fine pastry and talking passionately.

It might have been a Carlist committee meeting of a particularly fatuous character.

Even my youth and inexperience were aware of that.

And I was by a long way the youngest person in the room.

That quiet Monsieur Mills intimidated me a little by his age (I suppose he was thirty-five), his massive tranquillity, his clear, watchful eyes.