“There are men,” he said firmly, “who know how to love truly and deeply, and could never in their lives care for anybody but the one woman they have picked out. I don’t say all men feel that way; I don’t think they do. But there are a few that are capable of it.” The seats in an observation car are usually near neighbours, and it happened that the brown cuff of a tan sleeve, extended reposefully on the arm of her chair, just touched the back of his hand, which rested on the arm of his. This ethereally light contact continued. She had no apparent cognizance of it, but a vibrant thrill passed through him, and possibly quite a hearty little fire might have been built under him without his perceiving good cause for moving. He shook, gulped, and added: “I am!”
“But how could you be sure of that,” she said thoughtfully, “until you tried?” And as he seemed about to answer, perhaps too impulsively, she checked him with a smiling, “At your age!”
“You don’t know how old I am. I’m older than you!”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one next March.”
“What day?”
“The seventh.”
“That is singular!”
“Why?”
“Because,” she began in a low tone and with full recognition of the solemn import of the revelation—“Because my birthday is only one day after yours. I was twenty years old the eighth of last March.”