She was placid, but it was the placidity not of the absence of emotion, but of emotion disdained.
Not the placidity of the mollusk, but that of a mature and contemplative cat.
Quietly she sat down at a corner table, quietly she removed her veil and gloves, and quietly she took in the room and its three occupants.
Condy and Blix glued their eyes upon their coffee cups like guilty conspirators; but a crash of falling crockery called their attention to the captain's table.
Captain Jack was in a tremor.

Hitherto he had acted the role of a sane and sensible gentleman of middle age, master of himself and of the situation.

The entrance of K.D.B.had evidently reduced him to a semi-idiotic condition.

He enlarged himself; he eased his neck in his collar with a rotary movement of head and shoulders.

He frowned terribly at trifling objects in corners of the room.