Hamilton White was a tall, handsome man, some few years on the wrong side of thirty, broader-shouldered and deeper-chested than the ordinary American model, elaborately but very quietly dressed, without any jewelry or showy patterns. There was something very Parisian in his get-up and manner, yet you would never take him for a Frenchman, still less for a Frenchified-Englishman. But he had the look of a man who had lived in a gay capital, and quite fast enough for his years: his fine hair was beginning to go on the top of his head, and his face wanted freshness and color. His manner, slightly reserved at first, rapidly warmed into animation, and his large dark eyes gave double expression to whatever he said. His very smallest talk was immensely impressive. He would tell a stranger that he was happy to make his acquaintance with an air that implied all the Spaniard's _mi casa a la disposicion de usted_, and meant about as much; and when you saw him from the _parquet_ of the Opera talking to some young lady in the boxes, you would have imagined that he was making a dead set at her, when in fact he was only uttering some ordinary meteorological observation. Apart from his knack of looking and talking sentiment, he had no strongly-marked taste or hobby: danced respectably, but not often; knew enough about horses to pick out a good one when he wanted a mount for a riding-party; drank good wine habitually, without being pedantic about the different brands of it; and read enough of the current literature of the day to be able to keep up a conversation if he fell among a literary circle. He was not a marrying man, partly because his income, sufficient to provide him with all bachelor luxuries, was not large enough to support a wife handsomely; partly because that a man should tie himself to one woman for life was a thing he could not conceive, much less practice: but he very much affected the society of the softer sex, and was continually amusing himself with some young girl or young wife. He rather preferred the latter--it was less compromising; still he had no objection to victimize an innocent _debutante_, and leave her more or less broken-hearted. (It must be observed, however, for the credit of American young ladies, that they are not addicted to dying of this complaint, so often fatal in novels; many of Hamilton's victims had recovered and grown absolutely fat upon it, and married very successfully.) Wherever there was a _fiancee_, or a probable _fiancee_, or a married belle with an uxorious husband,--in short, wherever he could make himself look dangerous and another man jealous or foolish, he came out particularly strong; at the same time, being adroit and not over belligerent, he always contrived to stop or get out of the way in time if the other party showed open signs of displeasure.