"Going on five."
"It's seemed a long time to me, too, Cinda—five years since these eyes were last made glad by the sight of you."
"At least, time hasn't impaired your knack at pretty speeches."
"Nor your power to inspire them."
"I'm not so sure. To myself I seem ever so much older." Lucinda Druce turned full face to the man on her left, anxiety feigned or real puckering the delicately pencilled brows. "Doesn't it show at all, Dobbin, the ruthless march of advancing years?"
The man narrowed critically his eyes and withheld his verdict as if in doubt; but a corner of his mouth was twitching.
"You are lovelier today than ever, lovelier even than the memories of you that have quickened my dreams——"
"All through these years? How sweet—and what utter tosh! You know perfectly well your heart hasn't been true to Poll——"
"Unfortunately, the damn' thing has. Oh, I'm not pretending I didn't do my level best to forget, tried so hard I thought I had won out. But it only needed this meeting tonight to prove that the others were merely anodynes for a pain that rankled on, as mortal hurts do always, 'way down beneath the influence of the opiate."
"Truly, Dobbin, you've lost nothing of your ancient eloquence. That last speech quite carried me back to the days when, more than once, you all but talked me off my feet and into your arms."