He
has that quiet deference, that look of pleased, attentive interest
in listening to a woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice
in speaking to a woman, which, say what we may, we can none of us
resist. Here, too, his unusual command of the English language
necessarily helps him. I had often heard of the extraordinary
aptitude which many Italians show in mastering our strong, hard,
Northern speech; but, until I saw Count Fosco, I had never
supposed it possible that any foreigner could have spoken English
as he speaks it. There are times when it is almost impossible to
detect, by his accent that he is not a countryman of our own, and
as for fluency, there are very few born Englishmen who can talk
with as few stoppages and repetitions as the Count. He may
construct his sentences more or less in the foreign way, but I
have never yet heard him use a wrong expression, or hesitate for a
moment in his choice of a word.
All the smallest characteristics of this strange man have
something strikingly original and perplexingly contradictory in
them. Fat as he is and old as he is, his movements are
astonishingly light and easy. He is as noiseless in a room as any
of us women, and more than that, with all his look of unmistakable
mental firmness and power, he is as nervously sensitive as the
weakest of us.
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