Do you know, the withered years seem to be dropping from me like leaves from an autumn sapling.

And I feel young enough to say so poetically.

...

Did Sylvia try to flirt with you over the wire ?" "Yes, as usual," he said drily, descending the stairs beside her.
"And really you don't love her any more ?" she queried.
"Scarcely." His voice was low and rather disagreeable, and she looked up.
"I wish I knew what you and Sylvia find to talk about so frequently, if you're not in love." But he made no answer; and they drove away to the Belwether house, a rather wide, old-style mansion of brown stone, with a stoop dividing its ugly facade, and a series of unnecessary glass doors blockading the vestibule.
A drawing-room and a reception-room flanked the marble-tiled hall; behind these the dining-room ran the width of the rear.

It was a typical gentlefolk's house of the worst period of Manhattan, and Major Belwether belonged in it as fittingly as a melodeon belongs in a west-side flat.
The hall-way was made for such a man as he to patter through; the velvet-covered stairs were as peculiarly fitted for him as a runway is for a rabbit; the suave pink-and-white drawing-room, the discreet, gray reception-room, the soft, fat rugs, the intricacies of banisters and alcoves and curtained cubby-holes--all reflected his personality, all corroborated the ensemble.