The beginning of her response seemed perfectly in line with what he would have expected, given the way these society conversations at parties always seemed to go, but then she continued with more compliments, and that smile. Was it just his imagination, or did her smile look a little... strange? Maybe it was just that she had been wearing it so long, and it had started to take on that sort of not-quite-right feeling that a word had when you said it too many times in a row without the context of a sentence. Her smile seemed not exactly friendly, at this point in the conversation, though it certainly was not unfriendly. What else could a smile be, though, besides friendly or unfriendly? What was he missing about this expression that would have made it made some sense? Where was the sentence to give context to this repeated word?

And then there were the words themselves. A man of means. She had entirely the wrong idea about him, and Ford's face lit up in surprise at her estimation of him. "I'm not —" he began, but realized he could not continue without giving up the charade. " — fighting anyone away," he finished — meaning that young ladies were hardly swarming him, nor could he imagine that they had any desire to do so (despite his sisters' teasing prior to Christmas) and failing to realize that it might come across instead as willingness to engage with said debutantes.