The tea things were still on the table.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" I asked, in genuine solicitude.
"Yes—no." I think he would have liked it, but he probably remembered whose tea it was. "No," he repeated, with decision.
He breathed heavily, with short, puffy gasps. I recalled then that Mrs. Brokenshire had said that his heart had been affected. As a matter of fact, he put his gloved left hand up to it, as people do who feel something giving way within.
To relieve the embarrassment of the situation I said:
"I could turn on all the lights and you could see the library without going round it."
Withdrawing the hand at his heart, he raised it in the manner with which I was familiar.
"Sit down," he commanded, as sternly as his shortness of breath allowed.
The companion William and Mary chair being near, I slipped into it. Having him in three-quarters profile, I could study him without doing it too obviously, and could verify Mrs. Brokenshire's statements that Hugh's affairs were "telling on him." He was perceptibly older, in the way in which people look older all at once after having long kept the semblance of youth. The skin had grown baggy, the eyes tired; the beard and mustache, though as well cared for as ever, more decidedly mixed with gray. It was indicative of something that had begun to disintegrate in his self-esteem, that when his poor left eye screwed up he turned the terrifying right one on me with no effort to conceal the grimace.
As it was for him to break the silence, I waited in my huge ornamental chair, hoping he would begin.