It was the face of a man with a very set creed, and inclined to be satiric towards innovations, examined by him and rejected full fifty years ago.
One felt that a brain not devoid either of subtlety or aesthetic quality had long given up all attempts to interfere with conduct; that all shrewdness of speculation had given place to shrewdness of practical judgment based on very definite experience.

Owing to lack of advertising power, natural to one so conscious of his dignity as to have lost all care for it, and to his devotion to a certain lady, only closed by death, his life had been lived, as it were, in shadow.

Still, he possessed a peculiar influence in Society, because it was known to be impossible to get him to look at things in a complicated way.

He was regarded rather as a last resort, however.

"Bad as that?
Well, there's old Fitz-Harold! Try him! He won't advise you, but he'll say something." And in the heart of that irreverent young man, Harbinger, there stirred a sort of misgiving.