A SILENT GUARDIAN
I
The door of the long, dreary room, with its mahogany chairs, its littered table, its motley crew of pale, silent people, opened noiselessly. A dreary, lean footman appeared in the aperture, bowing towards a corner where, in a recess near a forlorn, lofty window, sat a tall, athletic-looking man of about forty-five years of age, with a strong yet refined face, clean shaven, and short, crisp, dark hair. The tall man rose immediately, laying down an old number of Punch, and made his way out, watched rather wolfishly by the other occupants of the room. The door closed upon him, and there was a slight rustle and a hiss of whispering.
Two well-dressed women leaned to one another, the feathers in their hats almost mingling as they murmured: “Not much the matter with him, I should fancy.”
“He looks as strong as a horse; but modern men are always imagining themselves ill. He has lived too much, probably.”
They laughed in a suppressed ripple.
At the end of the room near the door, under the big picture of a grave man in a frock-coat, holding a double eye-glass tentatively in his right hand as if to emphasise an argument—a young girl bent towards her father, who said to her in a low voice:
“That man who has just left the room is Brune, the great sculptor.”
“Is he ill?” the girl asked.