So I offered him a gold-tipped cigarette, that being a universal language.

He waived the offer aside with something between astonishment and disdain.

He had lean, long-fingered hands, entirely unlike those of the desert fraternity, who live too hard and fight too frequently to have soft, uncalloused skin and unbroken finger-nails.
He did not exactly fascinate me.

His self-containment was annoying.

It seemed intended to convey an intellectual and moral importance that I was not disposed to concede without knowing more about him.