“I call it an inconceivable grace that you ever came to love me.”
She nestled in his arms without speaking.
“My own darling ... so young and sweet you are....”
“I am not young, Gert. When you met me I was already beginning to get old without ever having been young. You seemed young to me, much younger at heart than I, because you still believed in what I called childish dreams and used to laugh at them. You have made me believe in love and tenderness and all such things.”
Gert Gram smiled, and whispered: “Perhaps my heart was not older than yours—for it seemed to me that I had never yet had any youth, and deep down in my soul I still entertained the hope that some day youth would touch me, if only for once, with his wand. But my hair has turned white meanwhile.”
Jenny raised her head and laid her hand caressingly on his head.
“Are you tired, little one? Shall I take off your shoes? Will you not lie down and rest?”
“No, let me stay as I am; it is nicer so.”
She drew her feet up under her and nestled closer in his lap. He laid one arm about her, and with the other hand he poured out some wine, holding the glass to her lips. She drank readily. He dropped cherries into her mouth and took the stones from her lips, putting them on the plate.
“More wine?”