"Bosh!" Preston's exclamation was calm, but pregnant.
"But consider, consider," she besought him. "Look at us, you are the robust, ruddy, phlegmatic type that will not change in twenty years, and I am exactly your opposite in every respect and that's the reason you like me and therein lies the whole tragedy. I'm nervous, mercurial, emotional, and nothing, nothing brings wrinkles so quickly as vivacity and expression."
"But you haven't any wrinkles."
"Not yet. Care, massage, a good maid and a light heart have kept them at bay. And, oh! gray hair!"
"But you haven't any gray hair," he said, with the same patient obstinacy.
"Not yet, but when they do begin to come, they come all at once. Hayward, I do not deny that I could care for you if I would let myself, but when I realize that for a woman to marry a man younger than herself makes life one long, hideous effort to keep the same age as her husband; oh, it is too frightening! Just think! No matter how much one may long for repose to have to be always up and exercising to keep one's figure; to have to hold on to one's complexion by always sleeping in stifling masks and slippery cold cream; to be always watching the roots of one's hair to see if it doesn't need retouching, and, worst of all, to have to be gay and vivacious and conceal, heaven knows, what twinges of rheumatism under a smiling face."
"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you. It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'"
The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in her fingers.
"I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at last, "but the loving is obscured in doubts."
"Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?"