CHAPTER XVIB
LAISE OLIFANT sat over his work in the room which once, for want of a better name, the late Mr. Gale called his study; but it was a room transformed to studious use. The stuffed trout and the large scale-map of the neighbourhood and the country auctioneer’s carelessly bestowed oddments had been replaced by cases of geological specimens and bookshelves filled with a specialist’s library. The knee-hole writing-desk, with its cigarette-burned edge, had joined the rest of the old lares and penates in honourable storage, and a long refectory-table, drawn across the window overlooking the garden, and piled with papers, microscopes, and other apparatus, reigned in its stead. Olifant loved the room’s pleasant austerity. It symbolized himself, his aims and his life’s limitations. A fi
