“Is he—how do you mean? Isn't he any better?”
“Would you like to see him? He is in the office. You can go right in.”
Presley rose. He hesitated a moment, then:
“Mrs. Annixter,” he asked, “Hilma—is she still with you? I should like to see her before I go.” “Go in and see Magnus,” said Mrs. Derrick. “I will tell her you are here.”
Presley stepped across the stone-paved hallway with the glass roof, and after knocking three times at the office door pushed it open and entered.
Magnus sat in the chair before the desk and did not look up as Presley entered. He had the appearance of a man nearer eighty than sixty. All the old-time erectness was broken and bent. It was as though the muscles that once had held the back rigid, the chin high, had softened and stretched. A certain fatness, the obesity of inertia, hung heavy around the hips and abdomen, the eye was watery and vague, the cheeks and chin unshaven and unkempt, the grey hair had lost its forward curl towards the temples and hung thin and ragged around the ears. The hawk-like nose seemed hooked to meet the chin; the lips were slack, the mouth half-opened.
Where once the Governor had been a model of neatness in his dress, the frock coat buttoned, the linen clean, he now sat in his shirt sleeves, the waistcoat open and showing the soiled shirt. His hands were stained with ink, and these, the only members of his body that yet appeared to retain their activity, were busy with a great pile of papers,—oblong, legal documents, that littered the table before him. Without a moment's cessation, these hands of the Governor's came and went among the papers, deft, nimble, dexterous.
Magnus was sorting papers. From the heap upon his left hand he selected a document, opened it, glanced over it, then tied it carefully, and laid it away upon a second pile on his right hand. When all the papers were in one pile, he reversed the process, taking from his right hand to place upon his left, then back from left to right again, then once more from right to left. He spoke no word, he sat absolutely still, even his eyes did not move, only his hands, swift, nervous, agitated, seemed alive.
“Why, how are you, Governor?” said Presley, coming forward. Magnus turned slowly about and looked at him and at the hand in which he shook his own.
“Ah,” he said at length, “Presley...yes.”