In one of the lounges, not far from the window, lay a colossal old man, wrapped in a loose robe of warm white stuff, and fast asleep.
He was a very old man, so old, indeed, as to make it hard to guess his age from his face and his hands, the only parts visible as he lay at rest, the vast body and limbs lying motionless under his garment, as beneath a heavy white pall.

He could not be less than a hundred years old, but how much older than that he might really be, it was impossible to say.

What might be called the waxen period had set in, and the high colourless features seemed to be modelled in that soft, semi-transparent material.

The time had come when the stern furrows of age had broken up into countless minutely-traced lines, so close and fine as to seem a part of the texture of the skin, mere shadings, evenly distributed throughout, and no longer affecting the expression of the face as the deep wrinkles had done in former days; at threescore and ten, at fourscore, and even at ninety years.

The century that had passed had taken with it its marks and scars, leaving the great features in their original purity of design, lean, smooth, and clearly defined.