Indeed,
starting from the Rossiters' Thursdays and Praed's studio suppers,
he was being taken up by persons of influence who were pleased to
find him witty, possessed of a charming voice, of quiet but
unassailable manners. Opinions differed as to his good looks. Some
women proclaimed him as adorable, rather Sphynx-like, you know, but
quite fascinating with his well-marked eye-brows, his dark and curly
lashes, the rich warm tints of his complexion, the unfathomable grey
eyes and short upper lip with the down of adolescence upon it. Other
women without assigning any reason admitted he did not produce any
effect on their sensibility--they disliked law students, they said,
even if they were of a literary turn; they also disliked curates and
shopwalkers and sidesmen ... and Sunday-school teachers. Give them
_manly_ men; avowed soldiers and sailors, riders to hounds,
sportsmen, big game hunters, game-keepers, chauffeurs--the
chauffeur was becoming a new factor in Society, Bernard Shaw's
"superman"--prize-fighters, meat-salesmen--then you knew where you
were.
Similarly men were divided in their judgment of him. Some liked him
very much, they couldn't quite say why. Others spoke of him
contemptuously, like Major Armstrong had done. This was due partly
to certain women being inclined to run after him--and therefore to
jealousy on behalf of the professional lady-killer of the
military species--and partly to a vague feeling that he was
enigmatic--Sphynx-like, as some women said.
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