"And now?" she repeated softly.
"Now I find that youth has fled and left but emptiness behind!"
"Poor, O poor, decrepit, ancient man!" she sighed, "with your back so bent and your arms so feeble! So wrinkled, so toothless, and so blind!" And rising she turned away and leaned round elbows on the sundial. Now presently he came and stood beside her, looking into her lovely, down-bent face then pointed to the legend graven on the stone.
"Read," said he, "read and tell me—is't not wisdom?" And, very obediently, she read aloud:
"Youth is joyous; Age is melancholy:
Age and Youth together is but folly."
"Indeed," she nodded, "'tis a very wise proverb and, like most other proverbs, sayeth very plainly that black is black and white is white. And truly I do think you a great coward, Major 'Fighting d'Arcy'!"
"Betty?" said he, a little breathlessly.
"You may be very brave in battle but in—in other things you are a very coward!"
"My lady—O Betty! Do you mean ... is it possible that such miracle could be... You in the bloom of your youth and beauty, I——"
"So bent with years!" said she in tender mockery, "so feeble and so—very—blind!"