The man who was sitting at the writing-table had not raised his head for half an hour from between his hands.  
When at last he lifted his face, after a third knock upon the door, the prints of his fingers were branded across its grayness in livid streaks.
 
The hall-boy who entered, after waiting vainly for permission, handed him a telegram, which he opened and spread out on the desk before him.
 
He stared at it blankly, with his temples upon his wrists, until the boy, tired of waiting, asked if there were any answer.
 
Terence turned and looked at him as though unable to account for his presence.
 
The boy repeated his question, and Terence shook his head, resting it again upon his hands as the door closed upon the messenger, gazing down uncomprehendingly upon the thin pink sheet.
 
Presently, however, the meaning of what lay before him filtered into his consciousness. It was an invitation of no moment, but it needed a reply. He drew out a sheaf of forms from a pigeon-hole, wrote a refusal, rang for the boy, and sent it off.
 
The incident passed at once from his mind, but it had disturbed his absorption.
 
He rose and paced slowly and aimlessly about the room, gazing blindly out of the window and at the engravings upon the walls. There was something curious in the combined looseness and stiffness of his movements: he seemed literally to be dragging himself about.
 
When he sat down again he turned his chair slightly from the table, and leaning back in it, stared out at the gray day with a look of dazed pain upon his face.
 
So he remained while an h............