Soames was standing near it, in his soft hat and his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. 🔊 Anybody who knew him would have recognized the portrait at a glance, but nobody who didn't know him would have recognized the portrait from its bystander: it "existed" so much more than he; it was bound to. 🔊 Also, it had not that expression of faint happiness which on that day was discernible, yes, in Soames's countenance. 🔊 Fame had breathed on him. 🔊 Twice again in the course of the month I went to the New English, and on both occasions Soames himself was on view there. 🔊 Looking back, I regard the close of that exhibition as having been virtually the close of his career. 🔊 He had felt the breath of Fame against his cheek—so late, for such a little while; and at its withdrawal he gave in, gave up, gave out. 🔊 He, who had never looked strong or well, looked ghastly now—a shadow of the shade he had once been. 🔊 He still frequented the domino-room, but having lost all wish to excite curiosity, he no longer read books there. 🔊 "You read only at the museum now?" 🔊 I asked, with attempted cheerfulness. 🔊 He said he never went there now. 🔊 "No absinthe there," he muttered. 🔊 It was the sort of thing that in old days he would have said for effect; but it carried conviction now. 🔊 Absinthe, erst but a point in the "personality" he had striven so hard to build up, was solace and necessity now. 🔊 He no longer called it la sorcière glauque. 🔊 He had shed away all his French phrases. 🔊 He had become a plain, unvarnished Preston man. 🔊