Merrithew, on the other hand, standing tall and
broad-shouldered, looking about him as he talked, with quick, observant
glances; a face weather-beaten, but not rough, a typical Anglo-Saxon
fighting face, but kindly withal; certainly not truculent. Miss
Howland had met young army and navy officers who had aroused in her
similar impressions; she had, in fact, no difficulty in defining
Merrithew's type. He was of the class which does strong things out of
the beaten track; men who in the process of civilization have retained
some of the wandering or combative or predatory instincts of earlier
ages and have been set apart in the scheme of natural selection to
fight battles, explore countries, kill wild beasts, navigate waters, to
the end that a greater proportion of their fellow men may peaceably
advance the interests of commerce, science, the arts, and, other
affairs of a humdrum world.
Oddington took Miss Howland in. At the last moment her father had
telephoned from the office he would be late and not to wait for him.
This necessitated a hasty rearrangement of the dinner cards; and Mrs.
Van Vleck was further disturbed by the butler, who was batting his eyes
fiercely at the cringing second man, token that something had occurred,
or more probably had been about to occur, to mar that service which was
his pride.
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