"Felicia, forgive me! I didn't mean to hurt you."
"You didn't. It just came back to me for a moment how fearfully young and happy and ignorant I was in those days. But with all the wisdom I've garnered since, if I had it to do over again, I suppose I should travel precisely the same road. Isn't it queer, Stephen? Don't you feel that way about the past, too?"
"No, my road was too devilish rough. I'd like it different."
Felicia looked up, surprised both at his words and the unusual passion in his voice.
"Do you suppose I have ever forgotten I didn't get what I wanted? Felicia, I loved you before Syd ever saw you."
"I know. I'm sorry. I was always sorry. You know that, Stephen."
"You needn't be. Loving you made a man of me, though it did make the road rough. Things had come my way rather too easily up to that time. Syd was the better man. I always owned that."
"You were fine, Stephen. I've never forgotten how fine. And Sydney cared more for you than for any one else in the world--barring us." She smiled a little and her eyes strayed out to the magnolia tree beneath whose generous shade Marianna and Donald were laboriously engaged in the construction of a kite with much chatter and argument.
"Felicia."
"Yes?"