How it all Came Round by L.T. Meade

Jaspar Harman was sixty years old at this time, but the days of his pilgrimage had passed lightly over him, neither impairing his frame nor his vigor. At sixty years of age he could think as clearly, sleep as comfortably, eat as well -- nay, even walk as far as he did thirty years ago. His life in the Antipodes seemed to have agreed with him. It is true his hair was turning gray, and his shrewd face had many wrinkles on it, but these seemed more the effects of climate than of years. He looked like a man whom no heart-trouble had ever touched and in this doubtless lay the secret of his perpetual youth. Care might sweep him very close, but it could not enter an unwelcome guest, to sit on the hearth of his holy of holies; into the innermost shrine of his being it could scarcely find room to enter. His was the kind of nature to whom remorse even for a sin committed must be almost unknown. His affections were not his strong point. Most decidedly his intellect overbalanced his heart. But without an undue preponderance of heart he was good-natured; he would pat a chubby little cheek, if he passed it in the street, and he would talk in a genial and hearty way to those beneath him in life. In business matters he was considered very shrewd and hard, but those who had no such dealings with him pronounced him a kindly soul. His smile was genial; his manner frank and pleasant. He had one trick, however, which no servant could bear -- his step was as soft as a cat's; he must be on your heels before you had the faintest clue to his approach.

In this stealthy way he now left his niece's room, stole down the thickly carpeted stairs, crept across a tiled hall, and entered the apartment where his elder brother waited for him.