As soon as the reality dawned the
mental image, retiring with a sigh, became substantial enough to suffer a
slight wrong. Overt, who had spent a considerable part of his short life
in foreign lands, made now, but not for the first time, the reflexion
that whereas in those countries he had almost always recognised the
artist and the man of letters by his personal "type," the mould of his
face, the character of his head, the expression of his figure and even
the indications of his dress, so in England this identification was as
little as possible a matter of course, thanks to the greater conformity,
the habit of sinking the profession instead of advertising it, the
general diffusion of the air of the gentleman--the gentleman committed to
no particular set of ideas. More than once, on returning to his own
country, he had said to himself about people met in society: "One sees
them in this place and that, and one even talks with them; but to find
out what they _do_ one would really have to be a detective." In respect
to several individuals whose work he was the opposite of "drawn
to"--perhaps he was wrong--he found himself adding "No wonder they
conceal it--when it's so bad!" He noted that oftener than in France and
in Germany his artist looked like a gentleman--that is like an English
one--while, certainly outside a few exceptions, his gentlemen didn't look
like an artist. St. George was not one of the exceptions; that
circumstance he definitely apprehended before the great man had turned
his back to walk off with Miss Fancourt. He certainly looked better
behind than any foreign man of letters--showed for beautifully correct in
his tall black hat and his superior frock coat. Somehow, all the same,
these very garments--he wouldn't have minded them so much on a
weekday--were disconcerting to Paul Overt, who forgot for the moment that
the head of the profession was not a bit better dressed than himself. He
had caught a glimpse of a regular face, a fresh colour, a brown moustache
and a pair of eyes surely never visited by a fine frenzy, and he promised
himself to study these denotements on the first occasion. His
superficial sense was that their owner might have passed for a lucky
stockbroker--a gentleman driving eastward every morning from a sanitary
suburb in a smart dog-cart. That carried out the impression already
derived from his wife. Paul's glance, after a moment, travelled back to
this lady, and he saw how her