"Perhaps," say I, still with a poor assumption of lightness and gayety, "perhaps you were talking of—of old times."
He laughs a little, but whose laugh has he borrowed? in that dry, harsh tone there is nothing of my Roger's mellow mirth!
"Not we; old times must take care of themselves; one has enough to do with the new ones, I find."
"Did she—did she say any thing to you about—about Algy, then?"—hesitatingly.
"We did not mention his name."
There is something so abrupt and trenchant in his tone that I have not the spirit to pursue my inquiries any further. In deep astonishment and still deeper mortification, I pursue my way in silence.
Suddenly Roger comes to a stand-still.
"Nancy!" he says, in a voice that is more like his own, stopping and laying his hands on my shoulders; while in his eyes is something of his old kindness; yet not quite the old kindness either; there is more of unwilling, rueful yearning in them than there ever was in that—"Nancy, how old are you?—nineteen, is it not?"
"Very nearly twenty," reply I, cheerfully, for he has called me "Nancy," and I hail it as a sign of returning fine weather; "we may call it twenty; will not it be a comfort when I am well out of my teens?"
"And I am forty-eight," he says, as if speaking more to himself than to me, and sighing heavily; "it is a monstrous, an unnatural disparity!"