Smiling away this diagnosis of Hughs' words, Hilary shook the old man's withered hand, and closed the door. Sitting down again at his writing-table, he buried himself almost angrily in his work. But the queer, half-pleasurable, fevered feeling, which had been his, since the night he walked down Piccadilly, and met the image of the little model, was unfavourable to the austere process of his thoughts.
CHAPTER XXV
MR. STONE IN WAITING
That same afternoon, while Mr. Stone was writing, he heard a voice saying:
“Dad, stop writing just a minute, and talk to me.”
Recognition came into his eyes. It was his younger daughter.
“My dear,” he said, “are you unwell?”
Keeping his hand, fragile and veined and chill, under her own warm grasp, Bianca answered: “Lonely.”
Mr. Stone looked straight before him.