"I suppose that is partly on account of your age?" he said, still looking at me with his amused smile.
My age! His tone and smile awoke a kind of resentment. He must feel himself infinitely older and wiser, else he would never assume that superior air.
"Age has nothing to do with it! It is entirely a matter of temperament," I contradicted, with a little show of feeling. He smiled more broadly, and a hot flush of shame spread over my face as I recalled my dreams of this man. I had thought of him for months, had imagined him in every great and heroic rôle; had made a hero of him. Worse still, I fancied that he—perhaps—had thought of me; had stayed here to-day because he had found me! And here he was smiling down at me as he made playful remarks about my age!
"Why should you look distressed over a mention of your age?" he suddenly broke in, so gently that I looked up in surprise and found his face grave. He had been reading my thoughts—at least in part. "Now, if you were as old as I—that would be something worth troubling over."
"You? Yet the papers always speak of your youth. They will call you the 'boy governor' when you're elected."
He was pleased at my words.
"Or the boy who also ran—perhaps! But age is only a relative condition. My political friends call me a boy because I am only thirty-seven years old. Yet, to you that age may seem patriarchal. Doesn't it?"
I thrilled at the look of earnestness in his eyes. He was the one now who was concerned over what I thought of his age.
"Rufe is thirty-seven," I answered, trying to make my tone non-committal.
"And yet you call him Rufe!"