The New Men by C.P. Snow

Martin left Barford at the end of the year: Luke became Chief Superintendent the following May. A few weeks later, I went down to do some business with him on my way to Cambridge, where Martin had invited me to a college feast.

The Drawbells had not yet finished moving house, although Drawbell's own new appointment had been announced. It was a come down. Perhaps that was why, more bullyingly even than in the past, he insisted that I should stay my night at Barford with them, not with the Lukes. I could not say no: in his decline he was hard to resist, partly because his personality was one of those that swell, become more menacing, the more he saw his expectations fade away.