Jocelyn by John Galsworthy

Giles rode over the next morning. He found Jocelyn and Mrs. Travis in the garden of the hotel talking with a young Englishman. They came forward to meet him, but he felt at once that in Jocelyn's greeting there was something foreign to her, something almost repellant. After the first moment she did not look at him; all her attention seemed bestowed upon the speech of the young Englishman, who stood, speckless, descanting upon "systems," the demerits of which he illustrated languidly with his fingers. He was a weakly, immutable young man, sloping from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He began it with his forehead, and continued it all the way down; his voice sloped -- it came out of him loudly, and died away; his hands sloped -- they began large, and ended small. He never smiled -- not from set purpose, but because he had lost the art, and his eyes calculated continually out of the monotony of a colourless face.

"‘Systems' are all rot," he was saying, "there are only two fellers in Monte Carlo who make it pay, don't y' know, old Blore and Nielsen; an' they don't do it by figures, only by bein' so 'nfernally patient."