Seeing Elfrida, he involuntarily put up his hand to settle the back of his coat collar--these little middle-aged ways were growing upon him--and shook hands with her as Janet introduced them, with that courtly impenetrable agreeableness that always provoked curiosity about him in strangers, and often led to his being taken for somebody more important than he was, usually somebody in politics.

Elfrida saw that he was quite different from her conception of a university professor with a reputation in Persian and a clever daughter of twenty-four.

He was straight and slender for one thing; he had gay inquiring eyes, and fair hair just beginning to show gray where the ends were brushed back; and Elfrida immediately became aware that his features were as modern and as mobile as possible.

She had a moment of indecision and surprise -- indecision as to the most effective way of presenting herself, and surprise that it should be necessary to decide upon a way.

It had never occurred to her that a gentleman who had won scientific celebrity by digging about Arabic roots, and who had contributed a daughter like Janet to the popular magazines, could claim anything of her beyond a highly respectful consideration.