He entered his own sitting-room on the second floor, shut the door
behind him, and glanced round him with delight. It was a large room
looking on a side street, and obliquely to the park. Its walls were
covered with books--books which almost at first sight betrayed to the
accustomed eye that they were the familiar companions of a student.
Almost every volume had long paper slips inside it, and when opened
would have been found to contain notes and underlinings in a somewhat
reckless and destructive abundance. A large table, also loaded untidily
with books and papers, stood in the centre of the room; many of them
were note-books, stored with evidences of the most laborious and patient
work; a Cambridge text lay beside them face downward, as he had left it
on departure. His mother's housekeeper, who had been one of his best
friends from babyhood, was the only person allowed to dust his room--but
on the strict condition that she replaced everything as she found it.

He took up the volume, and plunged a moment headlong into the Greek
chorus that met his eye. "_Jolly!_" he said, putting it down with a sigh
of regret. "These beastly politics!"

And he went muttering to his dressing-room, summoning his valet almost
with ill-temper. Yet half his library was the library of a politician,
admirably chosen and exhaustively read.

The footman who answered his call understood his moods and served him at
a look. Ashe complained hotly of the brushing of his dress-clothes, and
worked himself into a fever over the set of his tie. Nevertheless,
before he left he had managed to get from the young man the whole story
of his engagement to the under-housemaid, giving him thereupon some bits
of advice, jocular but trenchant, which James accepted with a readiness