When masculine voices sounded at the drawing-room door, Mrs. Loring looked curiously for the eccentric gentleman. He entered last of all. A man of more than middle height, but much bowed in the shoulders; thin, ungraceful, with an irresolute step and a shy demeanour; his pale-grey eyes, very soft in expression, looked timidly this way and that from beneath brows nervously bent, and a self-obliterating smile wavered upon his lips. His hair had begun to thin and to turn grey, but he had a heavy moustache, which would better have sorted with sterner lineaments. As he walked--or sidled--into the room, his hands kept shutting and opening, with rather ludicrous effect. Something which was not exactly shabbiness, but a lack of lustre, of finish, singled him among the group of men; looking closer, one saw that his black suit belonged to a fashion some years old. His linen was irreproachable, but he wore no sort of jewellery, one little black stud showing on his front, and, at the cuffs, solitaires of the same simple description. He drifted into a corner, and there would have sat alone, seemingly at peace, had not Mrs. Weare presently moved to a seat beside him. 'I hope you won't be staying in town through August, Mr. Tymperley?' 'No!--Oh no!--Oh no, I think not!' 'But you seem uncertain. Do forgive me if I say that I'm sure you need a change. Really, you know, you are _not_ looking quite the thing. Now, can't I persuade you to join us at Lucerne? My husband would be so pleased--delighted to talk with you about the state of Europe. Give us a fortnight--do!' 'My dear Mrs. Weare, you are kindness itself! I am deeply grateful. I can't easily express my sense of your most friendly thoughtfulness. But, the truth is, I am half engaged to other friends. Indeed, I think I may almost say that I have practically...yes, indeed, it amounts to that.' He spoke in a thinly fluting voice, with a preciseness of enunciation akin to the more feebly clerical, and with smiles which became almost lachrymose in their expressiveness as he dropped from phrase to phrase of embarrassed circumlocution. And his long bony hands writhed together till the knuckles were white. 'Well, so long as you _are_ going away. I'm so afraid lest your conscientiousness should go too far. You won't benefit anybody, you know, by making yourself ill.' 'Obviously not!--Ha, ha!--I assure you that fact is patent to me. Health is a primary consideration. Nothing more detrimental to one's usefulness than an impaired... Oh, to be sure, to be sure!' 'There's the strain upon your sympathies. That must affect one's health, quite apart from an unhealthy atmosphere.' 'But Islington is not unhealthy, my dear Mrs. Weare! Believe me, the air has often quite a tonic quality. We are so high, you must remember. If only we could subdue in some degree the noxious exhalations of domestic and industrial chimneys!--Oh, I assure you, Islington has every natural feature of salubrity.'