"'There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but seeing her pass by,
And yet I loved her until I die.
"'Cupid has wounded and doth range
Her country and she my love doth change;
But change the earth and change the sky,
But still will I love her till I die.'
"Well, my dear, I was exactly like that romantic youth. For over a quarter of a century my mind remained perfectly true to the memory of that sad-faced girl in the garden. She came once to my father's rectory, and we played tennis, and after that I didn't see her again for over thirty years."
Grisel watched him with wide, fascinated eyes, as if he was someone she had never seen before. She was trying to do what is so hard for a young person to do—look back into an old person's youth and really see that youth face to face.
"Why was she unhappy?" she asked as he paused and very slowly lit another cigarette.
"Oh, that, too, was a romance. Hers, just as she was mine. She had been sent to the Fenwicks to try to distract her mind and draw her away from a young man to whom she was attached."
"Did you ever tell her that you had fallen in love with her?"
"Good heavens, no! I was not a lover. I was a worshipper, and she was so beautiful, so perfect——" He broke off. "Ah, my dear, that's the kind of love that's worth having."
She watched him, her face changing to one of less detached curiosity.
"Dear me, John," she said, "you alarm me, for this kind of love is certainly not what you give me."