Little boys and girls were brought up on the "to be seen and not heard" principle, until obedience to one's elders was in the blood. It was a religion, and few there were that escaped its stultifying influence.
"I was only twenty," he said. "What could I do?"
And when he was forty-five, and was in England on business, SHE came—a chance meeting at a big country ball, a dance, and then the keen, swift birth of love and that tragic realization of the impossibility of its fulfilment.
"I saw her again—three times in all. But there was my duty to my wife and children in America. I knew that it was hopeless, and so—I said, 'Good-by.' There were tears, George. Even I . . . crumpled up a little. . . . I fled back to the States immediately—I was afraid of myself. . . . It was a long time ago, and yet— Do you think I'm foolish to hope that she might . . . still be alive—and still remember?"
"No!" I answered.
"It isn't that I haven't thought of such a possibility before. But I always seemed so old. I couldn't dispel the feeling that she still had eternal youth on her side. You see, she was only twenty-one when we last met. Even now I can't picture her as any older than that."
He fell back into the silence of his own thoughts.
"George," he cried at last. "Why shouldn't I? I'm a comparatively young man again. Supposing I did find her and could persuade her to join me—rejuvenated? . . . Even after all these years I can still remember where she lived."
"Good Lord, Gran'pa!" I couldn't help exclaiming.
"And why not?" he challenged with a sudden look of defiance in his eyes.