The gentlemen who came in with him were nothing when he was there.

They turned up alone at other times--then only perhaps with a dim richness of reference.

He himself, absent as well as present, was all.

He was very tall, very fair, and had, in spite of his thick preoccupations, a good-humour that was exquisite, particularly as it so often had the effect of keeping him on.

He could have reached over anybody, and anybody--no matter who--would have let him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite pathetically waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor saying "Here!" with horrid sharpness.