A business-man born and made, you would have said of Lancelot Lancaster, not of stocks and shares or rustling parchments, but an acute, sound man of the land, a lean, light, open-air man, often in the saddle, with no aim beyond a clear-sighted judgment of terms and tenants, nor any desire more whimsical than a steady prosperity. It was only when you looked at his mouth, with its hint of patience and repression, of longing held in leash and idealism shrouded like a sin, that you wondered if he was not, after all, only very well-trained. Yes, Helwise had been particularly trying at breakfast. Her post had required a lot of explanation, and his own had included a letter from Bluecaster, one of the kindly, idiotic letters at which Lanty smiled and swore in a breath. There was also a second letter (which of course he had read first) totally contradicting the other; and at the bottom of all had been one from the London solicitor, telling him (unofficially) to take no notice of either. Bluecaster’s agent pencilled patient comments on the three unnecessary epistles. He had spent the morning with a prospective tenant who had seemed to take a gloating delight in raising difficulties which would never have so much as occurred to anybody else; the type of sportsman who goes house-hunting for the sheer joy of pointing out to the lessor the contemptible disabilities of his property. Getting back for lunch at the usual time, he found that Helwise had had it early and eaten most of it, afterwards cinematographing off to some meeting at least an hour too soon; and the afternoon had seen him harried from pillar to post by an inspector who kept telephoning trysting-places and never turning up. Helwise was having tea at her meeting, so there was none for him unless he chose to order it, and just as his hand was on the bell, tenants of standing had arrived, wanting him. It was really the tenants who had made him feel old. Facing him at the office-table, Wolf Whinnerah had the light full upon his fierce old face, with its sunk, dark eyes and thatch of silver hair. He was over seventy, but until recently he had carried his years with an almost miraculous lightness. Now, at last, however, the rigorous hand of Time had touched him suddenly, breaking him in a few weeks. Pneumonia, during a trying season, had carried him very near the grave, and though he had fought his way back, he was nevertheless a beaten man. The strong bones of his keen face showed their clean lines under his furrowed skin. His height was dwindled, his step grown uncertain, his grasp weakened, his sight dulled. The end of the things that mattered had come to old Wolf Whinnerah.