"
It was clear that a man who could see anything remarkable in such a
thing was far gone, and Stephen had murmured:
"My dear old chap, you're getting too introspective."
Hilary, having given his brother the special retiring smile, which
seemed not only to say; "Don't let me bore you," but also, "Well,
perhaps you had better wait outside," the conversation closed.
That smile of Hilary's, which jibbed away from things, though
disconcerting and apt to put an end to intercourse, was natural enough.
A sensitive man, who had passed his life amongst cultivated people in
the making of books, guarded from real wants by modest, not vulgar,
affluence, had not reached the age of forty-two without finding his
delicacy sharpened to the point of fastidiousness. Even his dog could
see the sort of man he was. She knew that he would take no liberties,
either with her ears or with her tail. She knew that he would never hold
her mouth ajar, and watch her teeth, as some men do; that when she was
lying on her back he would gently rub her chest without giving her the
feeling that she was doing wrong, as women will; and if she sat, as she
was sitting now, with her eyes fixed on his study fire, he would never,
she knew, even from afar, prevent her thinking of the nothing she loved
to think on.
In his study, which smelt of a particular mild tobacco warranted to
suit the nerves of any literary man, there was a bust of Socrates, which
always seemed to have a strange attraction for its owner.
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