aloof

But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year’s pension as a solatium for his wounded character.

His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran, as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself.

They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil inquiries after her family.

Come, let me see the list of the pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia’s folly.”