Presently he drank some of his tea, but it was lukewarm, and he pushed the cup from him.
The clatter of the cup brought the old butler, who toddled hither and thither, removing trays, pulling chairs into place, fussing and pattering about, until a maid came in noiselessly, bearing a lamp.

She pulled down the shades, drew the sad-coloured curtains, went to the mantelpiece and peered at the clock, then brought a wineglass and a spoon to Siward, and measured the dose in silence.

He swallowed it, shrugged, permitted her to change the position of his chair and footstool, and nodded thanks and dismissal.
"Gumble, are you there ?" he asked carelessly.
The butler entered from the hallway.

"Yes, sir." "You may leave that decanter." But the old servant may have misunderstood, for he only bowed and ambled off downstairs with the decanter, either heedless or deaf to his master's sharp order to return.
For a while Siward sat there, eyes fixed, scowling into vacancy; then the old, listless, careworn expression returned; he rested one elbow on the window-sill, his worn cheek on his hand, and with the other hand fell to weaving initials with his pencil on the margin of the newspaper lying on the table beside him.
Lamplight brought out sharply the physical change in him--the angular shadows flat under the cheek-bones, the hard, slightly swollen flesh in the bluish shadows around the eyes.

The mark of the master-vice was there; its stamp in the swollen, worn-out hollows; its imprint in the fine lines at the corners of his mouth; its sign manual in the faintest relaxation of the under lip, which had not yet become a looseness.
For the last of the Siwards had at last stepped into the highway which his doomed forebears had travelled before him.
"Gumble!" he called irritably.
A quavering voice, an unsteady step, and the old man entered again.