“Was he always a good deal of an oyster?” he asked abruptly.  “He was terribly shy as a boy.”

“Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so,” rejoined Stevens.  “Although he could be very fond of people, he always gave one the impression of being detached.  He disliked violent emotion; he was reflective, and rather distrustful of himself—­except, of course, as regarded his work.  He was sure enough there.  He distrusted men pretty thoroughly and women even more, yet somehow without believing ill of them.  He was determined, indeed, to believe the best; but he seemed afraid to investigate.”

“A burnt dog dreads the fire,” said the lawyer grimly, and closed his eyes.

Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole miserable boyhood.  All this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of the man whose mind was to become an exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions—­so sensitive that the mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering against a sunny wall would be etched and held there for ever.  Surely, if ever a man had the magic word in his finger tips, it was Merrick.  Whatever he touched, he revealed its holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to its pristine loveliness.  Upon whatever he had come in contact with, he had left a beautiful record of the experience—­a sort of ethereal signature; a scent, a sound, a colour that was his own.

Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his master’s life; neither love nor wine, as many had conjectured; but a blow which had fallen earlier and cut deeper than anything else could have done—­a shame not his, and yet so unescapably his, to bide in his heart from his very boyhood.  And without—­the frontier warfare; the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a desert of newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened and old, and noble with traditions.

At eleven o’clock the tall, flat woman in black announced that the watchers were arriving, and asked them to “step into the dining-room.”  As Steavens rose, the lawyer said dryly:  “You go on—­it’ll be a good experience for you.  I’m not equal to that crowd tonight; I’ve had twenty years of them.”

As Steavens closed the door after him he glanced back at the lawyer, sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with his chin resting on his hand.

The same misty group that had stood before the door of the express car shuffled into the dining-room.  In the light of the kerosene lamp they separated and became individuals.  The minister, a pale, feeble-looking man with white hair and blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a small side table and placed his Bible upon it.  The Grand Army man sat down behind the stove and tilted his chair back comfortably against the wall, fishing his quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket.  The two bankers, Phelps and Elder, sat off in a corner behind the dinner-table, where they could finish their discussion of the new usury law