Eben Tollman's effort at being young was not wholly successful. There were times when even he suspected that it lacked something of complete attainment. He had now been married six months and his wife, though undeniably loyal, was as far as ever from kindling into that eager fire of complete love which he had boasted he would awaken in her.
When Conscience had warned him that their marriage would be an incomplete relationship Tollman had inwardly smiled. Of her faithfulness he could be sure and she herself would be his. The rest was a somewhat gossamer and idealistic matter which her youth exaggerated in importance.
But after six months, possession was no longer enough—and it was all he had. Sometimes indeed it seemed to him that the thing he lacked was greater than the sum of the things he possessed.
He had boasted that in indulging her wishes he found his highest privilege and pleasure, but he was of those who take their pleasures sadly. He had given her unrestricted permission to remodel his house, yet in every fresh detail of the alteration he discovered an act of vandalism under which his spirit writhed.
To his mind everything gained in sanctity by its age: the moth-eaten furniture was hallowed by tradition. The rheumatic old dog of uncertain breed, to which he had never vouchsafed a caress became now, when banished to the stable, a tried and faithful companion relegated to exile.
Privacy, he conceived as a matter of being shut in, and a house without cobwebbed shadows became a place bereft of decent seclusion. About him, now, all this undesirable metamorphosis was taking place.
"What is this room, my dear?" he inquired one morning as he spread before him on the breakfast table blue prints, while Conscience was pouring his coffee.
A shaft of early light tilting obliquely through the window fell on her head, making a soft nimbus about her dark hair and bringing out the exquisite color of her face. As Tollman looked up, raising the plans with a finger indicating the spot in question, he recognized the radiance of youth which could, under such a searching brilliance, remain flawless. He felt in contrast old and sluggish of life current.
"That?" Conscience's brows were lifted in surprise. "Why, Eben, you've been over those plans a half-dozen times. Surely you're familiar with them. That's your bed-room."
"And this one?" He shifted his finger and his face clouded.