Meredith got up and rattled some tongs in the empty fireplace, but the other did not move or notice him in any way.
Meredith set the tongs down, and went quietly out of the room, leaving his friend to that mysterious interview.
When he came back, after a remorseful cigarette in the yard, Harkless was still sitting, motionless, looking up at the photograph above the mantel-piece.
They drove abroad every day, at first in the victoria, and, as Harkless's strength began to come back, in a knock-about cart of Tom's, a light trail of blue smoke floating back wherever the two friends passed.

And though the country editor grew stronger in the pleasant, open city, Meredith felt that his apathy and listlessness only deepened, and he suspected that, in Harkless's own room, where the photograph reigned, the languor departed for the time, making way for a destructive fire.

Judge Briscoe, paying a second visit to Rouen, told Tom, in an aside, that their friend did not seem to be the same man.

He was altered and aged beyond belief, the old gentleman whispered sadly.
Meredith decided that his guest needed enlivening--something to take him out of himself; he must be stirred up to rub against people once more.
And therefore, one night he made a little company for him: two or three apparently betrothed very young couples, for whom it was rather dull, after they had looked their fill of Harkless (it appeared that every one was curious to see him); and three or four married young couples, for whom the entertainment seemed rather diverting in an absent-minded way (they had the air of remembering that they had forgotten the baby); and three or four bachelors, who seemed contented in any place where they were allowed to smoke; and one widower, whose manner indicated that any occasion whatever was gay enough for him; and four or five young women, who (Meredith explained to John) were of their host's age, and had been "left over" out of the set he grew up with; and for these the modest party took on a hilarious and chipper character.

"It is these girls that have let the men go by because they didn't see any good enough; they're the jolly souls!" the one widower remarked, confidentially.