Enormous in shape, for so Sir John had grown, carmine-coloured shading to purle about the shaved chin and lips (which were also of rather a curious hue), bald-headed, bold yet shifty-eyed, also clad in black, with a band of crape like to that of a Victorian mute, about his shining tall hat, he leaned against the florid, marble mantelpiece, a huge obese blot upon its whiteness.

They were a queer contrast, as dissimilar perhaps as two human beings well could be.
For a while there was silence between them, which he, whose nerves were not so young or strong as his daughter's, was the first to break.
"Well, she's dead, poor dear," he said.
"Yes," answered Isobel, her pent-up indignation bursting forth, "and you killed her." Then he too burst forth.
"Damn you, what do you mean, you little minx ?" he asked.

"Why do you say I killed her, because I did what I thought the best for all of us?
No woman had a better husband, as I am sure she acknowledges in heaven to-day." "I don't know what Mother thinks in heaven, if there is one for her, as there ought to be.

But I do know what I think on earth," remarked the burning Isobel.
"And I know what I think also," shouted her enraged parent, dashing the new, crape-covered hat on to the table in front of him, "and it is that the further you and I are apart from each other, the better we are likely to get on." "I agree with you, Father." "Look here, Isobel, you said that your uncle Edgar, who has been appointed Minister to Mexico, offered to take you with him to be a companion to his daughter, your cousin Emily.

Well, you can go if you like.