"You see, this is a passing thing. This happens< to almost every young man once in his life. He looks back and laughs at it."
" ... fatal to marry out of one's generation!"
"In a little time you'll know how right I am——"
" ... ten years hence you'd look at me, and see I was an old woman. You'd still be a young man. It would be horrible!"
The boy looked at her and smiled as she spoke, and she knew that the words meant nothing to him, the lips that uttered them were everything.
She said, resignedly, "Let's walk on," and they walked on down the narrow path between the thickening clumps of arbutus; this time he led, his head turned over his shoulder to watch her as she followed.
He began again (without alarm, it seemed): "You won't marry me, then?"
She was a little reassured by the cheerfulness in that husky boyish voice. She had flung cold water, then, to some purpose? He was ready to listen to reason.
"My dear boy, my dear child!" she exclaimed, laughing more naturally. "You weren't born when I'd been living for years and years. I was growing up and married when you were running about that paddock at home in a jersey suit. I'd been round the world when you were going to public school. Marry you? I shouldn't dream for one instant of such a thing. Not for one single instant."
"Just because of ages?" he tossed back over that wide shoulder as they went. "Is that all?"