a point of keeping up with the mental progress
of the age.

His eyebrows were drawn down, as if the process of storing up eyesight
for his old age was somewhat laborious. At times he turned and glanced
over his shoulder impatiently at the lamp.

The room was very still in its solid old-fashioned luxury. Although it
was June a small wood fire burned in the grate, and the hiss of a piece
of damp bark was the only sound within the four walls. From without,
through the thick curtains, came at intervals the rumble of distant
wheels. But it was just between times, and the fashionable world was at
its dinner. Sir John had finished his, not because he dined earlier than
the rest of the world--he could not have done that--but because a man
dining by himself, with a butler and a footman to wait upon him, does
not take very long over his meals.

He was in full evening dress, of course, built up by his tailor,
bewigged, perfumed, and cunningly aided by toilet-table deceptions.

At times his weary old eyes wandered from the printed page to the
smouldering fire, where a whole volume seemed to be written--it took so
long to read. Then he would pull himself together, glance at the lamp,
readjust the eyeglasses, and plunge resolutely into the book. He did
not always read scientific books. He had a taste for travel and
adventure--the Arctic regions, Asia, Siberia, and Africa--but Africa was
all locked away in a lower drawer of the writing-table. He did not care
for the servants to meddle with his books, he told himself. He did not
tell anybody that he did not care to let the servants see him reading
his books of travel in Africa.

There was nothing dismal or lonely about this old man sitting in evening
dress in a high-backed chair, stiffly reading a scientific book of the
modern, cheap science tenor--not written for scientists, but to step in
when the brain is weary of novels and afraid of communing with
itself. Oh, no! A gentleman need never be dull. He has his necessary
occupations. If he is a man of intellect he need never be idle. It is an
occupation to keep up with the times.

Sometimes after dinner, while drinking his perfectly made black
coffee, Sir John would idly turn over the invitation cards on the
mantelpiece--the carriage was always in readiness--but of late the
invitations had not proved very tempting. There was no doubt that
society was not what it used to be. The summer was not what it used to
be, either. The even