"Yes," he murmured, "she was fine all over!" He had dropped his
eyeglasses, and his full brown eyes, with little crow's-feet at the
corners, wandered from his visitor to his cigar.

'He'd be like a Satyr if he wasn't too clean,' thought Harz. 'Put vine
leaves in his hair, paint him asleep, with his hands crossed, so!'

"When I am told a person has individuality," Herr Paul was saying in a
rich and husky voice, "I generally expect boots that bulge, an umbrella
of improper colour; I expect a creature of 'bad form' as they say in
England; who will shave some days and some days will not shave; who
sometimes smells of India-rubber, and sometimes does not smell, which is
discouraging!"

"You do not approve of individuality?" said Harz shortly.

"Not if it means doing, and thinking, as those who know better do not
do, or think."

"And who are those who know better?"

"Ah! my dear, you are asking me a riddle? Well, then--Society, men of
birth, men of recognised position, men above eccentricity, in a word, of
reputation."

Harz looked at him fixedly. "Men who haven't the courage of their own
ideas, not even the courage to smell of India-rubber; men who have no
desires, and so can spend all their time making themselves flat!"