Page 167 - of-human-bondage-

ly supercilious expression. He was tall and slim. He held
himself with a deliberate grace. Weeks, one of the Ameri-
can students, seeing him alone, went up and began to talk
to him. The pair were oddly contrasted: the American very
neat in his black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers, thin
and dried-up, with something of ecclesiastical unction al-
ready in his manner; and the Englishman in his loose tweed
suit, large-limbed and slow of gesture.
Philip did not speak to the newcomer till next day. They
found themselves alone on the balcony of the drawing-room
before dinner. Hayward addressed him.
‘You’re English, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is the food always as bad it was last night?’
‘It’s always about the same.’
‘Beastly, isn’t it?’
‘Beastly.’
Philip had found nothing wrong with the food at all, and
in fact had eaten it in large quantities with appetite and en-
joyment, but he did not want to show himself a person of so
little discrimination as to think a dinner good which an-
other thought execrable.
Fraulein Thekla’s visit to England made it necessary for
her sister to do more in the house, and she could not often
spare the time for long walks; and Fraulein Cacilie, with
her long plait of fair hair and her little snub-nosed face, had
of late shown a certain disinclination for society. Fraulein
Hedwig was gone, and Weeks, the American who gener-
ally accompanied them on their rambles, had set out for a

1 Of Human Bondage