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The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel.
For the first time it was Crailey who sat waiting for Tom to come home.

In a chair drawn to his partner's desk in the dusty office, he half-reclined, arms on the desk, his chin on his clenched fists.

To redeem the gloom he had lit a single candle, which painted him dimly against the complete darkness of his own shadow, like a very old portrait whose background time has solidified into shapeless browns; the portrait of a fair-haired gentleman, the cavalier, or the Marquis, one might have said at first glance; not describing it immediately as that of a poet, for there was no mark of art upon Crailey, not even in his hair, for they all wore it rather long then.

Yet there was a mark upon him, never more vivid than as he sat waiting in the loneliness of that night for Tom Vanrevel; though what the mark was and what its significance might have been puzzling to define.