thirty, broader-shouldered and deeper-chested than the ordinary
American model, elaborately but very quietly dressed, without any
jewelry or showy patterns. There was something very Parisian in his
get-up and manner, yet you would never take him for a Frenchman, still
less for a Frenchified-Englishman. But he had the look of a man who had
lived in a gay capital, and quite fast enough for his years: his fine
hair was beginning to go on the top of his head, and his face wanted
freshness and color. His manner, slightly reserved at first, rapidly
warmed into animation, and his large dark eyes gave double expression to
whatever he said. His very smallest talk was immensely impressive. He
would tell a stranger that he was happy to make his acquaintance with an
air that implied all the Spaniard's _mi casa a la disposicion de usted_,
and meant about as much; and when you saw him from the _parquet_ of the
Opera talking to some young lady in the boxes, you would have imagined
that he was making a dead set at her, when in fact he was only uttering
some ordinary meteorological observation. Apart from his knack of
looking and talking sentiment, he had no strongly-marked taste or hobby:
danced respectably, but not often; knew enough about horses to pick out
a good one when he wanted a mount for a riding-party; drank good wine
habitually, without being pedantic about the different brands of it; and
read enough of the current literature of the day to be able to keep up a
conversation if he fell among a literary circle. He was not a marrying
man, partly because his income, sufficient to provide him with all
bachelor luxuries, was not large enough to support a wife handsomely;
partly because that a man should tie himself to one woman for life was a
thing he could not conceive, much less practice: but he very much
affected the society of the softer sex, and was continually amusing
himself with some young girl or young wife. He rather preferred the
latter--it was less compromising; still he had no objection to victimize
an innocent _debutante_, and leave her more or less broken-hearted. (It
must be observed, however, for the credit of American young ladies, that
they are not addicted to dying of this complaint, so often fatal in
novels; many of Hamilton's victims had recovered and grown absolutely
fat upon it, and married very successfully.) Wherever there was a
_fiancee_, or a probable _fiancee_, or a married belle with an uxorious
husband