Homecomings by C.P. Snow

AS we walked round the square that night, both children were well. A fortnight later we took them to visit their grandfather, and the only illness on our minds was his. In the past winter Davidson had had a coronary thrombosis: and, although he survived, it was saddening to be with him now. Not that he was not stoical: he was clear-sighted about what he could expect for the rest of his life: the trouble was, he did not like what his clear sight told him, his spirits had gone dark and he would have thought it unreasonable if they had not.

Up to the sixties he had lived the life of a young man. His pleasures had been a young man's, even his minor ones, his games and his marathon walks. He looked more delicate than most men, but there was a pagan innocence about him, he had not been compelled to adjust himself to getting old. Then it had happened at a blow.