“Habit,” he said to himself.

At one end of the room there was a great gold screen, and “in a dim, religious light” the impression deepened; passing from ancient Thebes to modern France, Ulick thought of a great cathedral.  The celebrant, the deacon and the subdeacon were represented by first and second footmen, the third footman, who never left the sideboard, he compared to the acolyte, the voice of the great butler proposing different wines had a ritualistic ring in it; and, amused by his conception of dinner in Berkeley Square, Ulick admired Owen’s dress.  He wore a black velvet coat, trousers, and slippers.  His white frilled shirt and his pearl studs reminded Ulick of his own plain shirt with only one stud, and he suspected vulgarity in a single stud, for it was convenient, and would therefore appeal to waiters and the middle classes.  He must do something on the morrow to redeem his appearance, and he noticed Owen’s cuffs and sleeve-links, which were superior to his own; and Owen’s hands, they, too, were superior—­well-shaped, bony hands, with reddish hair growing about the knuckles.  Owen’s nails were beautifully trimmed, and Ulick determined to go to a manicurist on the morrow.  A delicious perfume emerged when Owen drew his handkerchief from his coat pocket; and all this personal care reminded Ulick of that time long ago when Owen was Evelyn’s lover and travelled with her from capital to capital, hearing her sing everywhere.  “Now he will never see her again,” he thought, as he followed Owen back to his study, hoping to persuade him into telling the story of how he had gone down to Dulwich to write a criticism of Innes’s concert, and how he had at once recognised that Evelyn had a beautiful voice, and would certainly win a high position on the lyric stage if she studied for it.

It was a solace to Owen’s burdened heart to find somebody who would listen to him, and he talked on and on, telling of the day he and Evelyn had gone to Madame Savelli, and how he had had to leave Paris soon after, for his presence distracted Evelyn’s attention from her singing-lessons.  “In a year,” Madame Savelli had said, “I will make something wonderful of her, Sir Owen, if you will only go away, and not come back for six months.”

“He lives in recollection of that time,” Ulick said to himself, “that is his life; the ten years he spent with her are his life, the rest counts for nothing.”  A moment after Owen was comparing himself to a man wandering in the twilight who suddenly finds a lamp:  “A lamp that will never burn out,” Ulick said to himself.  “He will take that lamp into the tomb with him.”

“But I must read you the notices.”  And going to an escritoire covered with ormolu—­one of those pieces of French furniture which cost hundreds of pounds—­he took out a bundle of Evelyn’s notices.  “The most interesting,” he said, “were the first notices—­before the critics had made up their mind about her.”

He stopped in his untying of the parcel to tell Ulick about his journey to Brussels to hear her sing.