She did not properly understand what he meant, but she was striving magnificently to seem as if she did. And the more she strove the more she felt: There are parts of this man that I shall never understand. And I am defenceless, I am at a terrible disadvantage, because there are no parts of me that he could not understand if he would.... And all the time during the conversation she had been noticing little insignificant things which gave her a peculiar, almost a poignant pleasure. His appearance was anything but effeminate, yet the whole pose of him as he poured out tea was instinct with an almost womanly grace. All his movements (excepting those that involved the rising out of his deck-chair) were so free, so unfettered, so effortless, even when they were uncouth. This does not mean that his table manners were perfect. They were not. Some of them were extremely original. He ate small triangular ham sandwiches at two mouthfuls. He dropped cigarette ash into his saucer. His cake dissection was ungeometrical. And yet he was all the while doing two things at once with such a superb and easy-going facility--talking and having tea. She admired him. She passionately admired him. She passionately admired him because everything she admired him for was done so unconsciously, so effortlessly, so unthinkingly. She watched the movements of his face as he spoke, and admired the splendid lack of symmetry that was there. She was fascinated by the appalling ugliness of some of his facial expressions. And she was fascinated by his supreme neglect of whether they were ugly or not. She shrank back at some of his facial eccentricities; she wanted to cry out: “Don’t do that again--ever! It looks terrible! It spoils you. You don’t show yourself to advantage a bit!” And the next minute she was admiring the nonchalance that made him so splendidly indifferent to the impressions he gave. The very hideousness of him at times was the measure of his individuality and of her admiration. § 8