with a polite smile on his face ian appeared at teas and mentally composed letters to his secretary ; he sat through the opera and slowly undressed her in his mind ; he endured eleven venetian breakfasts where he mentally designed an entirely new kind of mast for his fleet of ships ; he escorted her to eighteen balls and politely refrained from acting out his recurring fantasy of dismembering the fops who clustered around her , eyeing her lush curves and mouthing platitudes to her .