Sorrell and Son by Warwick Deeping

Christopher had maintained his friendship with John Kennard, now one of the senior surgeons, and when Kennard asked Kit to dinner, the younger man found himself one of a party of three. Sir Ormsby Gaunt was standing on Kennard's hearthrug, just as Kit had seen him facing a lecture room with a white-headed, easy dignity that no student had ever dared to challenge. He had eyes, deep under bushy eyebrows, that gave the world quick, acute and side-long glances. When watching him Kit had always been struck by the perfect stillness of the great man's hands.

To Christopher old Gaunt was a great man. Sorrell's son had not that pettifogging type of mind, the mind of little facetious envies that must tie a sneer to the tails of a man's coat. Kit was sanguine and creative. He knew how hard it was to do the great things well, and that old Gaunt had done them well. The little people who tickled life with straws were not to his liking.