Jenkins thawed before his gentle appreciations. I could see the change
operating within him. He began to realise that this incredible visit
from a man who ought to be hand and glove with Academicians was
something other than a spy's encroachment. He was old, you must
remember, and entirely unsuccessful. He had fought a hard fight and had
been worsted. He took his revenge in these suspicions.

We younger men adored him. He had the ruddy face and the archaic silver
hair of the King of Hearts; and a wonderful elaborate politeness that he
had inherited from his youth--from the days of Brummell. And, whilst all
his belongings were rotting into dust, he retained an extraordinarily
youthful and ingenuous habit of mind. It was that, or a little of it,
that gave the charm to my Jenkins story.

It was a disagreeable experience. I wished so much that the perennial
hopefulness of the man should at last escape deferring and I was afraid
that Churchill would chill before Jenkins had time to thaw. But, as I
have said, I think Churchill understood. He smiled his kindly,
short-sighted smile over canvas after canvas, praised the right thing in
each, remembered having seen this and that in such and such a year, and
Jenkins thawed.

He happened to leave the room--to fetch some studies, to hurry up the
tea or for some such reason. Bereft of his presence the place suddenly
grew ghostly. It was as if the sun had died in the sky and left us in
that nether world where dead, buried pasts live in a grey, shadowless
light. Jenkins' palette glowed from above a medley of stained rags on
his open colour table. The rush-bottom of his chair resembled a
wind-torn thatch.