"Did you ever see a woman look so well in a blue frock? Or in a black one either? There's a sort of painted thing she wears sometimes too. Well, perhaps I had better go to bed."
"I think it would be wise," said Thresk.
Young Hazlewood went over to the table in the corner and lit his candle.
"You'll shut that window before you go to bed, won't you?"
"Yes."
Hazlewood filled for himself a glass of barley-water and drank it, contemplating Henry Thresk over the rim. Then he went back to him, carrying his candle in his hand.
"Why don't you get married, Mr. Thresk?" he asked. "You ought to, you know. Men run to seed so if they don't."
"Thank you," said Thresk.
The tone was not cordial, but mere words were an invitation to Dick Hazlewood at this moment. He sat down and placed his lighted candle on the table between Thresk and himself.
"I am thirty-four years old," he said, and Thresk interposed without glancing up from his foolscap: