The others were
obvious--simple equations, soluble 'in the head.' But he called for
slate and pencil, offered materials for doubt and speculation, though
it would not have been easy to tell wherein they lay. What displayed
itself to a cursory inspection was quite unremarkable: simply a
decent-looking young Englishman, of medium stature, with square-cut
plain features, reddish-brown hair, grey eyes, and clothes and manners
of the usual pattern. Yet, showing through this ordinary surface,
there was something cryptic. For me, at any rate, it required a
constant effort not to stare at him. I felt it from the beginning, and
I felt it to the end: a teasing curiosity, a sort of magnetism that
drew my eyes in his direction. I was always on my guard to resist it,
and that was really the inception of my neglect of him. From I don't
know what stupid motive of pride, I was anxious that he shouldn't
discern the interest he had excited in me; so I paid less ostensible
attention to him than to the others, who excited none at all. I tried
to appear unconscious of him as a detached personality, to treat him
as merely a part of the group as a whole. Then I improved such
occasions as presented themselves to steal glances at him, study him
_a la derobee_--groping after the quality, whatever it was, that made
him a puzzle--seeking to formulate, to classify him.
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