“What nonsense are you talking about his dying in Europe, Mr. Dyke?  He hasn’t been in Europe for six years.  I was expecting him.  Let him come in at once.”

But he was already there; and Mr. Dyke slipped out again with consternation written upon his features.  Mr. MacGentle found himself with his thin old hand in the young man’s warm grasp.

“Helwyse, how do you do?—­how do you do?  Ah! you look as well as ever.  I was just thinking about you.  Sit down,—­sit down!”

The old President’s voice had a strain of melancholy in it, partly the result of chronic asthma, and partly, no doubt, of a melancholic temperament.  This strain, being constant, sometimes had a curiously incongruous effect as contrasted with the subject or circumstances in hand.  Whether hailing the dawn of the millennium; holding playful converse with a child, making a speech before the Board,—­under whatever rhetorical conditions, Mr. MacGentle’s intonation was always pitched in the same murmurous and somewhat plaintive key.  Moreover, a corresponding immobility of facial expression had grown upon him; so that altogether, though he was the most sympathetic and sensitive of men, a superficial observer might take him to be lacking in the common feelings and impulses of humanity.

Perhaps the incongruity alluded to had not altogether escaped his own notice, and since discord of any kind pained him, he had mended the matter—­as best he could—­by surrendering himself entirely to his mournful voice; allowing it to master his gestures, choice of language, almost his thoughts.  The result was a colorlessness of manner which did great injustice to the gentle and delicate soul behind.

This conjecture might explain why Mr. MacGentle, instead of falling upon his friend’s neck and shedding tears of welcome there, only uttered a few commonplace sentences, and then drooped back into his chair.  But it throws no light upon his remark that he had been expecting the arrival of a friend who, it would appear, had been dead two years.  Helwyse himself may have been puzzled by this; or, being a quick-witted young man, he may have divined its explanation.  He looked at his entertainer with critical sympathy not untinged with humor.

“I hope you are as well as I am,” said he.

“A little tired this morning, I believe; I never was so strong a man as you, Helwyse.  I think I must have passed a bad night.  I remember dreaming I was an old man,—­an old man with white hair, Helwyse.”

“Were you glad to wake up again?” asked the young man, meeting the elder’s faded eyes.

“I hardly know whether I’m quite awake yet.  And, after all, Thor, I’m not sure that I don’t wish the dream might have been true.  If I were really an old man, what a long, lonely future I should escape! but as it is—­as it is—­”