o, is hastening
to add its insolence to the stew. That stutter upon the pane is its
advance-guard....

Did you hear that dull crash, gentlemen? Or are your ears not
practised enough to pluck it out of the welter of rugged harmony? It
was an elm, sirs, an old fellow, full of years, gone to his long home.
For the last time the squirrels have swung from his boughs: for the
last time the rooks have sailed and cawed about his proud old head.
To-morrow there will be another empty stall in that majestic quire
which it has taken Time six hundred years to fill....

The distant crash brought Lyveden out of a sleep-ridden reverie. For a
second he listened intently, as if he hoped that he had been mistaken,
and that the sound he had heard had been but a trick of the wind. Then
he gave a short sigh and knocked out his pipe.

* * * * *

"And you've had no answer?" said the Judge, snapping a wafer betwixt
his fingers and thumb.

His guest shook his head. Then he hastened to enlighten the
wine-waiter, who had been about to refill his glass with port and had
construed the gesture as a declension of the nectar.

"Never a line," he said shortly. "Of course the letter may never have
reached him. But, if it did, he may not have thought it worth while
... I mean, I wrote very guardedly."

"Naturally," said the Judge, "naturally. Still, I should have
thought..."

The two men sat facing each other across a small mahogany table from
which the cloth had been drawn. The surface thus exposed gave back
such light as fell upon it enriched and mellowed. In this it was
typical of the room, which turned the common air into an odour of
luxury.

Servants, perfectly trained, faultlessly groomed, stepped noiselessly
to and fro, handing dishes, replenishing glasses, anticipating desires.
A tremendous fire glowed in its massive cage; a crimson carpet and
curtains of almost barbaric gravity contributed to the admirable
temperature and deadened unruly noise. A brace of shaded candles to
each small table made up nine several nebulae, whose common radiance
provoked an atmosphere of sober mystery, dim and convenient. Light so
subdued subdued in turn the tones of the company of hosts and visitors.
Conversation became an exchange of confidences; laughter was soft and
low; the murmurous blend of talk flowed unremarked, yet comforted the
ear. The flash of silver, the sparkle of glass, the snow of napery,
gladdened