personal taste. There were bookcases, there were mezzotints, there were
engravings of well-known pictures, and there were armchairs not covered
with horsehair. There was also a cottage piano, severely nude. In the
center of the room stood a small square table covered with a cloth and
laid for two persons.

"I'll tell Mr. Chichester, sir."

The maid went out. From behind the folding-doors came to Malling's ears
the sound of splashing water, then a voice saying, certainly to the maid,
"Thank you, Ellen, I will come." And in three minutes Chichester was in
the room, apologizing.

"I was kept late in the parish. There's a good deal to do."

"You're not overworked?" asked Malling.

"Do I look so?" said Chichester, quickly.

He turned round and gazed at himself in an oval Venetian mirror which
was fixed to the wall just behind him. His manner for a moment was oddly
absorbed as he examined his face.

"London life tells on one, I suppose," he said, again turning. "We
change, of course, in appearance as we go on."

His blue eyes seemed to be seeking something in Malling's impenetrable
face.

"Do you think," he said, "I am much altered since we used to meet two