ink I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns。”
His manner was polite; his accent; in speaking; struck me as being somewhat unusual;—not precisely foreign; but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr。 Rochester’s;—between thirty and forty; his plexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a fine…looking man; at first sight especially。 On closer examination; you detected something in his face that displeased; or rather that failed to please。 His features were regular; but too relaxed: his eye was large and well cut; but the life looking out of it was a tame; vacant life—at least so I thought。
The sound of the dressing…bell dispersed the party。 It was not till after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease。 But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate。 His eye wandered; and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look; such as I never remembered to have seen。 For a handsome and not an unamiable…looking man; he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth…skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low; even forehead; no mand in that blank; brown eye。
As I sat in my usual nook; and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him—for he occupied an arm…chair