to his romantic and mysterious solitude.

The time was approaching when he should get up. He sent for his
luggage. The battered trunk and portmanteau plastered with the
labels of queer provincial towns did not betray great wealth. Nor
did the contents, taken out by the man-servant and arranged in
drawers by the nurse. His toilet paraphernalia was of the simplest
and scantiest. His stock of frayed linen and darned underclothes
made rather a poor little heap on the chair. He watched the
unpacking somewhat wistfully from his bed; and, like many another
poor man, inwardly resented his poverty being laid bare to the eyes
of the servants of the rich.

The only thing that the man seemed to handle respectfully--as a
recognized totem of a superior caste--was a brown canvas case of
golf clubs, which he stood up in a conspicuous corner of the room.
Paul had taken to the Ancient and Royal game when first he went on
tour, and it had been a health-giving resource during the listless
days when there was no rehearsal or no matinee--hundreds of
provincial actors, to say nothing of retired colonels and such-like
derelicts, owe their salvation of body and soul to the absurd but
hygienic pastime--and with a naturally true eye and a harmonious
body trained to all demands on its suppleness in the gymnasium,
proficiency had come with little trouble. He was a born golfer; for
the physically perfect human is a born anything physical you please.
But he had not played for a long time. Half-crowns had been very
scarce on this last disastrous tour, and comrades who included golf
in their horizon of human possibilities had been rarer. When would
he play again? Heaven knew! So he looked wistfully, too, at his set
of golf clubs. He remembered how he had bought them--one by one.