He was tall, slim and alert, with the quick, soft movements of some wild animal.

His face, brown with sunburn and pink with brisk-going blood, was exceedingly handsome in a boyish and almost effeminate manner, and though he was only eighteen months younger than his cousin, he looked as if nine or ten years might have divided their ages.
"But you are a brick, Mike," he said again, laying his long, brown hand on his cousin's shoulder.

"I can't help saying it twice." "Twice more than was necessary," said Michael, finally dismissing the subject.
The room where they sat was in Michael's flat in Half Moon Street, and high up in one of those tall, discreet-looking houses.

The windows were wide open on this hot July afternoon, and the bourdon hum of London, where Piccadilly poured by at the street end, came in blended and blunted by distance, but with the suggestion of heat, of movement, of hurrying affairs.

The room was very empty of furniture; there was a rug or two on the parquet floor, a long, low bookcase taking up the end near the door, a table, a sofa, three or four chairs, and a piano.