For the moment, Katherine's eye had followed the younger of the two who went towards the back, so that she did not become conscious of the personality of the other until, at the conclusion of the Minister's speech, he rose and laid some papers down upon the table in front of him amidst a sudden thrill of interest which noticeably ran through the assembly. He was a very tall and arrogant-looking person, rather thin and upright; and in everything about him there was a strange old-world suggestion, which characterised even the cutting and brushing of his hair and the shape of his coat. The brow was lofty and broad, and the thin iron-grey locks were combed straight back from it, and seemed to be perhaps rather longer than those of the young men. He had very large eyes deeply set, probably dark blue, Katherine thought, and his nose was prominently aquiline. He was clean-shaven, all but a small pair of close-cut whiskers, and this with some peculiarity about the shirt, and the frockcoat he wore, as well as a black satin stock, stamped him as someone of an altogether different generation--century, Katherine had almost said to herself! Who could he be? There was some picture she had seen which he reminded her of. She thought for a minute. Yes, it was a certain print which hung in a passage at Blissington, of the Duke of Wellington in evening dress, a profile, with the ribbon of the Garter across his breast. This man had something of the same personality. His whole appearance was so unusual, so almost startling, that had anyone else attempted to achieve the same result he would have looked either vulgarly dramatic or quite grotesque, but with this man even the old-fashioned clothes with their suspicion of a by-gone dandyism seemed to add to his immense distinction. Katherine thought that if she could have drawn a picture of a typical aristocrat of the Tory persuasion, of perhaps a hundred years ago, this man would have made a perfect model. And now he began to speak! And of all the voices she had ever heard or admired from beyond the half-high glass screen at Liv and Dev's, or listened to in her present situation, none had ever struck her as so ultra refined as the perfectly modulated tones now vibrating through the house.