The old man moved away.
"I can't believe it," he said. "I can't believe it. . . . It isn't natural! Such a few good ones in the world. It isn't right." He stood as though he were lost, fingering the visiting-cards on the table. He suddenly raised dull imperceptive eyes to Henry! "They can say what they like about new times coming and all being equal. . . . There'll be masters all the same and not another like Sir Charles. Good he was, good all through." He faded away.
Henry went upstairs. He was so lost that he stood in the library looking about him and wondering who that was at the long table. It was Herbert Spencer with his packets of letters and his bright red tape.
"Sir Charles is dead," Henry said.
The books across that wide space echoed: "Sir Charles is dead."
Herbert Spencer looked at the letters in his hand, let them drop, glanced up.
"Oh, I say! I'm sorry! . . . Oh dear!" he got up, staring at the distant bookshelves. "After the operation?"
"During it."
"Dear, dear. And I thought in these days they were clever enough for anything." He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "Not much use going on working to-day, I suppose?"