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absolutely cold. She wished him no ounce less of his man-
hood, but she sometimes thought he would be rather nicer
if he looked, for instance, a little differently. His jaw was too
square and set and his figure too straight and stiff: these
things suggested a want of easy consonance with the deeper
rhythms of life. Then she viewed with reserve a habit he had
of dressing always in the same manner; it was not appar-
ently that he wore the same clothes continually, for, on the
contrary, his garments had a way of looking rather too new.
But they all seemed of the same piece; the figure, the stuff,
was so drearily usual. She had reminded herself more than
once that this was a frivolous objection to a person of his im-
portance; and then she had amended the rebuke by saying
that it would be a frivolous objection only if she were in love
with him. She was not in love with him and therefore might
criticize his small defects as well as his great—which latter
consisted in the collective reproach of his being too serious,
or, rather, not of his being so, since one could never be, but
certainly of his seeming so. He showed his appetites and de-
signs too simply and artlessly; when one was alone with him
he talked too much about the same subject, and when oth-
er people were present he talked too little about anything.
And yet he was of supremely strong, clean make—which
was so much: she saw the different fitted parts of him as
she had seen, in museums and portraits, the different fitted
parts of armoured warriors—in plates of steel handsomely
inlaid with gold. It was very strange: where, ever, was any
tangible link between her impression and her act? Caspar
Goodwood had never corresponded to her idea of a delight-

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