Perhaps that man with the book was his namesake, the departed Alfred Dare.

He wondered vaguely how he should look when he also took his place among his relations.

Nature had favored him with a better mustache than most men, but he had a premonitory feeling that the very mustache itself, though undeniable in real life, would look out of keeping among these bluff, frank, light-haired people, of whom it seemed he--he who had never been near them before--was the living representative.
A sudden access of pleasurable dignity came over him as he sat on the dining-table, the great mahogany dining-table, which still showed vestiges of a by-gone polish, and was heavily dented by long years of hammered applause.

These ancestors of his! He would not disgrace them.

A few minutes ago he had been wondering whether Vandon might not be let.
Now, with one of the rapid transitions habitual to him, he resolved that he would live at Vandon, that in all things he would be as they had been.