But she said, as he paused, "Beautiful! 'Love among the Ruins,' isn't it?"
"Yes—And I," he sighed, tapping himself on the chest, "I am the Ruins!"
Despite the bombast of his tone, there was something in his sigh that struck her as genuine.
She said consolingly, "At least you're a well-preserved ruin, very popular with tourists.... I wonder what makes you feel so particularly ruinous to-night?"
"The fact that you're so damnably young," he muttered.
She made a little face at him. "I'm not, really. I'm one of those persons who are born grown-up, you know. Besides, it's a fault that will disappear in time."
"Exactly! And before you know it, my dear.
"'The nightingale that in the branches sang—ah, whence and whither flown again, who knows!'
"You oughtn't to be here with me," he said abruptly. "You ought to be back there, playing with the little boys and girls."
"But if the boys and girls bore me—?"