ght of youth stealing
through her half-closed eyes.

And abruptly he got up and walked away.

CHAPTER XXXI

SWAN SONG

The new wine, if it does not break the old bottle, after fierce
effervescence seethes and bubbles quietly.

It was so in Mr. Stone's old bottle, hour by hour and day by day,
throughout the month. A pinker, robuster look came back to his cheeks;
his blue eyes, fixed on distance, had in them more light; his knees
regained their powers; he bathed, and, all unknown to him, for he only
saw the waters he cleaved with his ineffably slow stroke, Hilary and
Martin, on alternate weeks, and keeping at a proper distance, for fear he
should see them doing him a service, attended at that function in case
Mr. Stone should again remain too long seated at the bottom of the
Serpentine. Each morning after his cocoa and porridge he could be heard
sweeping out his room with extraordinary vigour, and as ten o'clock came
near anyone who listened would remark a sound of air escaping, as he
moved up and down on his toes in preparation for the labours of the day.
No letters, of course, nor any newspapers disturbed the supreme and
perfect self-containment of this life devoted to Fraternity--no letters,
partly because he lacked a known address, partly because for years he had
not answered them; and with regard to newspapers, once a month he went to
a Public Library, and could be seen with the last four numbers of two
weekly reviews before him, making himself acquainted with the habits of
those days, and moving his lips as though in prayer. At ten each morning
anyone in the corridor outside his room was startled by the whirr of an
alarum clock; perfect silence followed; then rose a sound of shuffling,
whistling, rustling, broken by sharply muttered words; soon from this
turbid lake of sound the articulate, thin fluting of an old man's voice
streamed forth. This, alternating with the squeak of a quill pen, went
on till the alarum clock once more went off. Then he who stood outside
could smell that Mr. Stone would shortly eat; if, stimulated by that
scent, he entered; he might see the author of the "Book of Universal
Brotherhood" with a baked potato in one hand and a cup of hot milk in the
other; on the table, too, the ruined forms of eggs, tomatoes, oranges,
bananas, figs, prunes, cheese, and honeycomb, which had passed into other
forms already, together with a loaf of wholemeal bread. Mr. Stone would
presently eme