"Do you care, my son?" she asks him, a little wistfully.
"Care—why should I?" he asks, frowning. "And yet I have no mind to contradict the poet, who says:
"'The loss of youth is sadness
To all who think or feel—
A wound no after gladness
Can ever wholly heal;
And yet so many share it,
We learn at last to bear it.'"
His glance wanders from the window out into the beautiful grounds, where Laurel Vane is wandering, bright-eyed, bright-haired, lovely, in the golden springtime of youth.
"Sweet face, swift eyes, and gleaming
Sun-gifted mingling hair—
Lips like two rose-buds dreaming
In June's fruit-scented air.
Life, when her spring days meet her,
Hope, when her angels greet her,
Is not more calm—nor sweeter,
And love is not more fair."
"After all, there is nothing on earth so beautiful as youth," he says, aloud, his dark eyes following the flutter of that white robe among the trees.
She looks furtively past him and sees Laurel, too, the sunlight shining on the fair young face, her white apron-overskirt heaped high with flowers after her usual fashion, the refrain of a song on her lips that floats back to them in snatches. It is Mrs. Browning's—"The Lady's Yes."
"Yes, I answered you last night,
No, this morning, sir, I say—
Colors seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.
"When the viols played their best,
Lamps above and laughs below,
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for yes, or fit for no."