So it was when the planets were yet young, so it will be when the earth grows cold, though the man who fled discomfited from Shadwell after ten days should perhaps refrain from criticism.
In what most men count the great things of life, Loring never abused his position; in the small, he became frankly unclubbable. I had known him long enough to laugh at the old-maidish fixed order of incompatibilities that he mistook for a well-regulated life. It was very conservative, very unadaptable, and he had an unanswerable reason for everything. You dined with him at the Elysée because Armand had the finest hand in London for a _homard au tartare_--the practice and the tribute continued for years after the great chef had bought himself an hotel in Boston and bade farewell to London. You dined at eight-fifteen because--well, because Loring always dined at eight-fifteen, and food at any other hour was supper or a meat tea. You hurried your dinner so as not to miss the star turn at the "Round House," which was timed for nine-twenty-five, and, when you had seen that, you had to leave--because Loring always left at that point, in turn because there was never anything worth seeing after ten. You then sat for half an hour--a dreadfully uncomfortable half-hour--at Hale's, where smoking was not allowed (few men smoked in 1630 when Martin Hale opened his tavern in Piccadilly at the fringe of "the town"): it would never have done, he would assure you, to arrive at your next destination before eleven; equally no man on earth could wish to stay later than two a.m.
It was impossible to wean him from his little rules, and the world must follow his lead--or live elsewhere. (Which course was adopted, he hardly cared.) I fought to preserve my prejudices against his--and he beat me. At ten-ten I was left in my stall at the "Round House," and he was half-way to Hale's. And when he decided that he could not and would not meet women at breakfast, I scarcely hoped he would make an exception in favour of Lake House. If my mother and Beryl persisted in breakfasting with their guests--I can see the very shrug of his shoulders as though he had put his objections into words--it was really, _really_ simpler for me to meet him in Scotland where there would be no hideous domestic surprises in store for anyone.