“Every afternoon at four o'clock, except when the weather was very bad-autumn, winter, and spring-old Mr. Henry McCain drove up to the small, discreet, polished front door, in the small, discreet, fashionable street in which lived fairly old Mrs. Thomas Denby; got out, went up the white marble steps, rang the bell, and was admitted into the narrow but charming hall-dim turquoise-blue velvet panelled into the walls, an etching or two: Whistler, Brangwyn-by a trim parlour-maid.”