He glanced round to where the two young lovers had stood. But they had vanished together into the garden.
“I’ve been an old fool, my dear!” he said, smiling.
“You’ve been an old dear!” she replied, putting an arm about him and coming with him into the room. “You couldn’t have made me a better birthday present!” Her eyes, also, were full of tears.
“Forty to-day!” he said, “and it only seems like yesterday since you and I——”
“And you still love me?” she queried, in a tone that had no doubt, looking up into his face.
“I still love you,” he replied, happily positive. “Just as I did then!”
Arms about each other, he led her in front of the big mirror over the fireplace and they smiled at the reflected picture of their union.
“She called me an old man,” he said, a little ruefully, patting his hair before the mirror. “I’m getting a bit gray, too.” He looked at her. “But you, dear, you haven’t got a gray hair—and in my eyes you are just as beautiful as ever!”
She shook her head slowly at him in delight.