Can I always count on you for civil platitudes when I stir you out of your day-dreams ?" "You can always count on stirring me without effort." "No, I can't.

Nobody can.

You are never to be counted on; you are too absent-minded.

Like a veil you wrap yourself in a brown study, leaving everybody outside to consider the pointed flattery of your withdrawal.
What happens to you when you are inside that magic veil?
Do you change into anything interesting ?" He sat there, chin propped on his linked fingers, elbows on knees; and, though there was always the hint of a smile in his pleasant eyes, always the indefinable charm of breeding in voice and attitude, something now was lacking.

And after a moment she concluded that it was his attention.
Certainly his wits were wool-gathering again; his eyes, edged with the shadow of a smile, saw far beyond her, far beyond the sunlit shadows where they sat.
In his preoccupation she had found him negatively attractive.