I tried to remember his face as he had last sat there, in that little restaurant, at that same table; but I could not remember any particular time as the last.
He at least had not faded nor tarnished:
‘They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The Lads who will die in their glory and never be old.’
I repeated the lines to myself, and they made me happy, with their familiar beauty. I remembered the first time that I had read them, lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, at Campden Hill Square. A big, deep sofa with a green Morris chintz.
I had had a bad cold; it was winter and the fire was burning in the grate. I had watched the light flickering on the ceiling as I lay on my back, and repeated the lines with wonder and delight to myself. All this came back to me.
I had thought them so true, so full of meaning; and how little I had really understood.
Now I was oppressed and overpowered by the dread of old age, of deterioration, and change, and loss. It was gone already, the wonder of youth, and light, and life; it was slipping through my fingers before I had had time to realize and enjoy it. This was not life, this daily drudgery, this struggle to keep going, to get through, to exist. I was marking time, we were all marking time, waiting and waiting for the strain to relax, for the War to end; and meantime our youth was going.
Before in the old days we had been waiting, too, but that had been different. We had been waiting then for something to begin, to happen, this was waiting for something to end, to stop happening.
The waitress brought my tea. The toast was spread with a very rank margarine. The cake tasted of cocoa butter, and I remembered what delicious bread and butter they used to give us here.