Mr.Desmond, of art gallery and roulette notoriety, whose business is not to forget, was politely regretful at his absence from certain occult ceremonies which he had at irregular intervals graced with votive offerings.

And the list ended there--almost, not quite; for there were two people who had not forgotten Siward: Howard Quarrier and Beverly Plank; and one other, a third, who could not yet forget him if she would--but, as yet, she had not tried very desperately.
The day that Siward left New York to visit everybody's friend, Mr.
Mulqueen, in the country, Plank called on him for the second time in his life, and was presently received in the south drawing-room, the library being limited to an informality and intimacy not for Mr.Plank.
Siward, still lame, and using unskilfully two shiny new crutches, came down the stairs and stumped into the drawing-room, which, in spite of the sombre, clustering curtains, was brightly illuminated by the winter sunshine reflected from the snow in the street.

Plank was shocked at the change in him--at the ghost of a voice, listlessly formal; at the thin, nerveless hand offered; startled, so that he forgot his shyness, and retained the bony hand tightly in his, and instinctively laid his other great cushion-like paw over it, holding it imprisoned, unable to speak, unconscious, in the impulse of the moment, of the liberty he permitted himself, and which he had never dreamed of taking with such a man as Siward.
The effect on Siward was composite; his tired voice ceased; surprise, inability to understand tinged with instinctive displeasure, were succeeded by humourous curiosity; and, very slowly it became plain to him that this beefy young man liked him, was naively concerned about him, felt friendly toward him, and was showing it as spontaneously as a child.

Because he now understood something of how it is with a man who is in the process of being forgotten, his perceptions were perhaps the finer in these days, and the direct unconsciousness of Plank touched him more heavily than the pair of heavy hands enclosing his.
"I thought I'd come," began Plank, growing redder and redder as he began to realise the enormity of familiarity committed only on the warrant of impulse.

"You don't look well." "It was good of you to think of me," said Siward.