uired but for
that illness--the idea, the passion of Universal Brotherhood had sucked
into itself all his errant wonderings on the riddle of existence. The
single mind of this old man, divorced by illness from his previous
existence, pensioned and permanently shelved, began to worship a new
star, that with every week and month and year grew brighter, till all
other stars had lost their glimmer and died out.

At the age of seventy-four he had begun his book. Under the spell of his
subject and of advancing age, his extreme inattention to passing matters
became rapidly accentuated. His figure had become almost too publicly
conspicuous before Bianca, finding him one day seated on the roof of
his lonely little top-story flat, the better to contemplate his darling
Universe, had inveigled him home with her, and installed him in a room
in her own house. After the first day or two he had not noticed any
change to speak of.

His habits in his new home were soon formed, and once formed, they
varied not at all; for he admitted into his life nothing which took him
from the writing of his book.

On the afternoon following Hilary's dismissal of the little model,
being disappointed of his amanuensis, Mr. Stone had waited for an
hour, reading his pages over and over to himself. He had then done his
exercises. At the usual time for tea he had sat down, and, with his cup
and brown bread-and-butter alternately at his lips, had looked long and
fixedly at the place where the girl was wont to sit. Having finished,
he left the room and went about the house. He found no one but Miranda,
who, seated in the passage leading to the studio, was trying to keep
one eye on the absence of her master and the other on the absence of
her mistress. She joined Mr. Stone, maintaining a respect-compelling
interval behind him when he went before, and before him when he went
behind. When they had finished hunting, Mr. Stone went down to the
garden gate. Here Bianca found him presently motionless, without a hat,
in the full sun, craning his white head in the direction from which he
knew the little model habitually came. The mistress of the house was
herself returning from her annual visit to the Royal Academy, where she
still went, as dogs, from some perverted sense, will go and sniff round
other dogs to whom they have long taken a dislike. A loose-hanging
veil depended from her mushroom-shaped and coloured hat. Her eyes were
brightened by her visit. Mr. Stone