“I love you,” said Damier. He had not moved toward her, nor had she moved away. A little distance separated them, and they stood silently looking at each other.
“You mean—“ she said at last.
“I mean in every way in which it is possible for a man to love the woman he worships.”
The whirl of her mind mirrored itself in the stricken stupefaction of her wan, beautiful features. She caught at one flashing thought. “And I—her mother! You might have been my son!”
“No; I might not,” Damier affirmed.
“By age; I am old enough.”
“I know your age; you are forty-seven,” said Damier, able to smile at her, “and I am thirty. If you were seventy-seven, the only difference would be that I could have fewer years to spend with you; I should wish to spend them just the same. As it is, your age does not make us ludicrous before the world, if we were to consider that.”
At this she turned from him as if in impatience at this quibbling, and her own endurance of it, at such a moment.
“My friend! That this should have happened to you!”
“Can it never happen to you?” he asked.