He travelled accordingly that morning by branch lines from Hampshire into Surrey, and came to Broad Place in the glow of the afternoon. General Feversham was now within a few months of his eightieth year, and though his back was as stiff and his figure as erect as on that night now so many years ago when he first presented Harry to his Crimean friends, he was shrunken in stature, and his face seemed to have grown small. Durrance had walked with the general upon his terrace only two years ago, and blind though he was, he noticed a change within this interval of time. Old Feversham walked with a heavier step, and there had come a note of puerility into his voice.
"You have joined the veterans before your time, Durrance," he said. "I read of it in a newspaper. I would have written had I known where to write."
If he had any suspicion of Durrance's visit, he gave no sign of it. He rang the bell, and tea was brought into the great hall where the portraits hung. He asked after this and that officer in the Soudan with whom he was acquainted, he discussed the iniquities of the War Office, and feared that the country was going to the deuce.
"Everything through ill-luck or bad management is going to the devil, sir," he exclaimed irritably. "Even you, Durrance, you are not the same man who walked with me on my terrace two years ago."
The general had never been remarkable for tact, and the solitary life he led had certainly brought no improvement. Durrance could have countered with a tu quoque, but he refrained.
"But I come upon the same business," he said.
Feversham sat up stiffly in his chair.
"And I give you the same answer. I have nothing to say about Harry Feversham. I will not discuss him."
He spoke in his usual hard and emotionless voice. He might have been speaking of a stranger. Even the name was uttered without the slightest hint of sorrow. Durrance began to wonder whether the fountains of affection had not been altogether dried up in General Feversham's heart.
"It would not please you, then, to know where Harry Feversham has been, and how he has lived during the last five years?"