The Reverberator by Henry James

When on coming home again this evening, meanwhile, he complied with his father's request by returning to the room in which the old man habitually sat, Mr. Probert laid down his book and kept on his glasses. "Of course you'll continue to live with me. You'll understand that I don't consent to your going away. You'll have the rooms occupied at first by Susan and Alphonse."

Gaston noted with pleasure the transition from the conditional to the future tense, and also the circumstance that his father had been lost in a book according to his now confirmed custom of evening ease. This proved him not too much off the hinge. He read a great deal, and very serious books; works about the origin of things -- of man, of institutions, of speech, of religion. This habit he had taken up more particularly since the circle of his social life had contracted. He sat there alone, turning his pages softly, contentedly, with the lamplight shining on his refined old head and embroidered dressing-gown. He had used of old to be out every night in the week -- Gaston was perfectly aware that to many dull people he must even have appeared a little frivolous. He was essentially a social creature and indeed -- except perhaps poor Jane in her damp old castle in Brittany -- they were all social creatures.