It was quite true that he had a few pleasant things to say to Morris, it is also true that he immensely appreciated the wonderful port which glowed, ruby-like, in the nearly full decanter that lay to his hand.

And, above all, he, with his busy life, occupied for the most part in innumerable small affairs, revelled in the sense of leisure and serene smoothness which permeated Mrs.Assheton's house.

He was still a year or two short of sixty, and but for his very bald and shining head would have seemed younger, so fresh was he in complexion, so active, despite a certain reassuring corpulency, was he in his movements.

But when he dined quietly like this, at Mrs.Assheton's, he would willingly have sacrificed the next five years of his life if he could have been assured on really reliable authority--the authority for instance of the Recording Angel--that in five years time he would be able to sit quiet and not work any more.

He wanted very much to be able to take a passive instead of an active interest in life, and this a few hundreds of pounds a year in addition to his savings would enable him to do.