Having discovered early in his career that his dignified person and fine voice caused people to stand in some awe of him, and to move him into the chair at public meetings, he had grown so accustomed to deference that any approach to familiarity or irreverence disconcerted him exceedingly.
Agatha, on the other hand, having from her childhood heard Uncle John quoted as wisdom and authority incarnate, had begun in her tender years to scoff at him as a pompous and purseproud city merchant, whose sordid mind was unable to cope with her transcendental affairs.

She had habitually terrified her mother by ridiculing him with an absolute contempt of which only childhood and extreme ignorance are capable.

She had felt humiliated by his kindness to her (he was a generous giver of presents), and, with the instinct of an anarchist, had taken disparagement of his advice and defiance of his authority as the signs wherefrom she might infer surely that her face was turned to the light.
The result was that he was a little tired of her without being quite conscious of it; and she not at all afraid of him, and a little too conscious of it.
When she entered with her brightest smile in full play, Miss Wilson and Mr.Jansenius, seated at the table, looked somewhat like two culprits about to be indicted.

Miss Wilson waited for him to speak, deferring to his imposing presence.

But he was not ready, so she invited Agatha to sit down.
"Thank you," said Agatha sweetly.