In this he spoke the truth, for
the stale September days, in the huge half-empty town, had a charm
wrapped in them as a coloured gem might be wrapped in a dusty cloth.
When he went home at night to the empty house in Winchester Square,
after a chain of hours with his comparatively ardent friends, he
wandered into the big dusky dining-room, where the candle he took from
the hall-table, after letting himself in, constituted the only
illumination. The square was still, the house was still; when he
raised one of the windows of the dining-room to let in the air he
heard the slow creak of the boots of a lone constable. His own step,
in the empty place, seemed loud and sonorous; some of the carpets
had been raised, and whenever he moved he roused a melancholy echo. He
sat down in one of the armchairs; the big dark dining table twinkled
here and there in the small candle-light; the pictures on the wall,
all of them very brown, looked vague and incoherent. There was a
ghostly presence as of dinners long since digested, of table-talk that
had lost its actuality. This hint of the supernatural perhaps had
something to do with the fact that his imagination took a flight and
that he remained in his chair a long time beyond the hour at which
he should have been in bed; doing nothing, not even reading the
evening paper.
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