He would listen, his eyes questing eagerly for epigrams, for illuminating sentences he might contribute. But his unegoistic love for the subject would make him inarticulate. His eyes that had seemed about to speak of themselves, that had seemed laden with excited informations would close and a chuckle would come from his lips. The Caesars, the Borgias, the Medicis, the Bourbons, the Valois, Savonarola, Richelieu, the various Charles, Phillips, Williams, Henrys, the plumed headliners of history around whom had centered the hurdy-gurdy intrigues, the circus romances and wars of vanished centuries--these were the hail-fellows of his imagination. But people seldom talked of these names. People were more interested in contemporary topics. He did his best to be attentive. But his thought played truant and before he knew it he would be going over secretly certain things in his head. Villon, Marlowe, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, Suetonius--there was a rabble of them continually arguing and declaiming in Mr. Gilchrist's head. He liked to half close his eyes and imagine what the great names used to have for breakfast, what the great names would say if he were to enter their presence or if they were to come into this room. He liked to bring up in his mind pictures of old Paris, London, Florence, Avignon, Vienna with their lopsided roofs, winding alleys, night watchmen and king's guards. He could sit a whole evening this way thinking, "then he came to an old Inn and there were lights inside. People drinking inside, telling stories and laughing. The inn-keeper was a man named Simon. The curious stranger looked about him with an imperious eye...." These words murmuring in his head would conjure up the picture and there would be no further need for words. He was content to sit in the old inn, noticing its quaint decorations, its quaint but romantic inmates. Adventures would follow, strange episodes, denouements, climaxes--all without words as if he were watching a cinemategraph. His attempted smile would remain--a smile that concealed the fact he was neither smiling at those around him nor aware of what they were saying. For he would only half hear the chatter of the room and now and then nod his head vaguely at some question that people were answering--as if he too were answering it. He was almost sixty, and lonely because he knew of no one to whom he could talk. His wife in particular was a person to whom he never dreamed of talking. He had only a dim idea of what he wanted to say to someone. But all his life he had been hoping to meet this one who would be like himself. This someone would be a friend whom he could take with him into places like the old inn and the crazily twisting streets of old London or Paris. His days and years passed however without bringing him this companion. And outwardly he remained a mild little figure with sideburns, kindly tolerant toward everyone.