"I guess you'd better leave that to me," he finished grimly.
He was treating her as though she were a child, but she didn't resent it now. Indeed his attitude toward her made resentment impossible. His civility and hospitality, while lacking in the deference of other men of her acquaintance, were beyond cavil. But it was quite clear that the only impression her looks or her personality had made upon him was the slight one of having met and forgotten her—hardly flattering to her self-esteem. He was quite free from self-consciousness and at moments wore an air of abstraction which made it seem to Hermia as though he had forgotten her presence. In another atmosphere she had thought him unmannerly; here, somehow it didn't seem necessary to lay such stress upon the outward tokens of gentility. And his personal civility, more implied than expressed, was even more reassuring than the lip and eye homage to which she was accustomed.
In these moments of abstraction she inspected him curiously. His unshorn face was tanned a deep brown which with his rough clothing and longish hair gave him rather a forbidding aspect, and the lines into which his face fell in moments of repose were almost unpleasantly severe; but his eyes which had formed the painter's habit of looking critically through their lashes had a way of opening wide at unexpected moments and staring at her with the disconcerting frankness of those of a child. He turned them on her now so abruptly that she had not time to avert her gaze.
"You'll be missed, won't you?" he asked.
She smiled.
"Yes, I suppose I shall. They'll see the open hangar—"
"Do you think any one could have been watching your flight?"
"Hardly. I left at dawn. You see I've been bothered a lot by the curiosity of my neighbors. That's why I've been flying early."
"H—m. It's a pity to worry them so."
Markham rose and knocked out the ashes of his pipe.