In a deep-seated, high-backed armchair--placed between the table and the outstanding pillars of the chimney piece--propped up by dark silken pillows, his spare frame wrapped in a long, fur-lined, violet, cloth dressing-gown, a violet, velvet skull-cap on his head, sat Mr. Rivers. Laurence, who had not seen his uncle for the last five or six years, was conscious of receiving an almost painfully vivid impression at once of physical feebleness and intellectual energy. The elder man's face and hands appeared transparent as the crystal _memento mori_ on the table beside him. His long, straight nose showed thin as a knife. His wide, lip-less mouth seemed to shut with a spring, like a trap. The bone of the face and hands was salient, as of one suffering starvation. Yet the blue-grey eyes, though sunk in their cavernous sockets, were brilliant, alert, full of an almost malevolent greed of observation. Laurence noted that a spotless cleanliness and order pervaded the room and the person of its occupant. The angular and attenuated face was shaven with scrupulous nicety. The finger-nails were carefully polished and pointed. An open collar and wristbands of fine lawn showed exquisitely white against the purple cloth and fur of the dressing-gown. It was evident that Mr. Rivers, whatever the peculiarities of his temper or of his opinions, treated illness and approaching dissolution with an admirable effect of stoicism and personal dignity. As Laurence--himself conspicuously well-groomed, in evening dress, no mark of his long journey upon him, save in a complexion tanned by sun and sea-wind, and by the directness of glance and vigour of movement that remains, for a while, by every true sea-lover after he comes ashore--crossed the space between the door and fireplace, the old man raised himself a little in his chair. "Believe me, I am very sensible of the consideration you show in so immediately gratifying my desire to see you, my dear Laurence." "I was very happy to come, sir," the younger man answered. But he was not unconscious of a point of irony in the cold, level tones of the voice, or in the persistent scrutiny of the brilliant eyes. These appeared to regard him as they might some row of figures--mentally casting up, subtracting, dividing, intent on arriving, with all possible despatch, at a conclusive and final result. The effect was not precisely encouraging, nor were the words which followed.