“No, I’m all by myself.”
“It must be awfully convenient to have a back door,” murmured Herbert.
The painter shook his head. “You haven’t changed one bit,” he said, in laughing reproach, as they moved within.
“Oh, but you have,” said Herbert, pausing in the doorway to take him by the shoulders, and looking affectionately into his face. “Why, there’s quite a dash of gray in your hair. You must have been killing yourself with work.”
And, indeed, there were lines of premature age on the handsome face, too, though the rather tall, sturdy figure was still alert and unbent. The dark eyes had lost something of their old softness, the light of dream was rarer in them, but the little tangle of locks on his forehead still co-operated with the dark brown mustache and the smoothness of the firm chin to suggest the artist behind the practical man of the world.
“You forget I’m getting old,” he replied, only half jocosely.
“What nonsense! Why, I’m several years older than you.”
“No, are you?”
“Of course I am. Don’t you remember I was your senior, instructing you in the ways of this wicked world?”
“Well, you’re still looking a boy, anyhow,” said Mr. Strang.