as she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in
the results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside
examining the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when Lord
Brackenshaw came up to her and said:
"Miss Harleth, here is a gentleman who is not willing to wait any
longer for an introduction. He has been getting Mrs. Davilow to send me
with him. Will you allow me to introduce Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt?"
BOOK II--MEETING STREAMS.
CHAPTER XI.
The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to
get a definite outline for our ignorance.
Mr. Grandcourt's wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen;
but when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured
stranger to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the
real man, there was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and
vexatiously deepened with her consciousness of it. The shock came from
the reversal of her expectations: Grandcourt could hardly have been
more unlike all her imaginary portraits of him. He was slightly taller
than herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the
faintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a trace of
self-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat he
showed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of
reddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of
feature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome,
with only moderate departures from the perpendicular, and the slight
whisker too was perpendicular. It was not possible for a human aspect
to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings: also it was perhaps
not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The
correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity,
assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill,
suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with
some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt's bearing
had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had
a faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the
artificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing
but indifference. Attempts at description are stupid: who can all at
once describe a human being? even when he is presented to us we only
begin that knowledge of his appearance which m
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