It was chiefly Lord Henry's air of preoccupation that set Sir Joseph so quickly at his ease. For although the baronet was familiar enough with the sons of peers and peers themselves,—for had he not a number of them on his various boards?—there was, as we have seen, something more than mere rank in his youthful visitor to disturb him.
While the first courteous platitudes were being exchanged, Sir Joseph quietly took stock of his companion, and was for a brief moment a little perturbed by the latter's unconventional attire.
We have noticed that though he was young, Lord Henry's hair receded a little from his brow, and made it appear even loftier than it actually was. Between the high bald temples, however, a wisp of stiff fair hair still remained over the centre of the young man's forehead, somewhat resembling that seen in the portraits of Napoleon, and with this tuft his long well-shaped and sensitive fingers would play continuously while he spoke, with the result that he constantly bowed his head.
Occasionally, therefore, when his customary gravity gave way for a space and his face was irradiated with a smile or a laugh, an expression of such irresistible and almost wicked mirth suffused his features, owing to the upward glance he was constrained to give you from the bowed angle of his head, that willy-nilly you were compelled to laugh with him.
Sir Joseph felt this; he was also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a moment almost offensive.
It was strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature before him.
"Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry, "would give me no peace until I came to see you, Sir Joseph, so you must forgive me for forcing myself upon you in this way, and relying for your forbearance simply upon the strength of the friendship you bear her."
He laughed, and Sir Joseph perforce laughed with him.
"'Ave you seen her lately?" the baronet enquired.
"She's always seeing me," Lord Henry replied, smiling in a manner that was at once childishly winsome and wise. He was still startlingly boyish, despite his thirty-three years, and though his slight baldness added a few years to his face, he did not look a month older than five-and-twenty.