Incidentally the personality of Frieda Roth came back, and—long before her—Stella Appleton.
"Youth! Youth! What in this world could be finer—more acceptable! Where would you find its equal? After all the dust of the streets and the spectacle of age and weariness—the crow's feet about people's eyes, the wrinkles in their necks, the make-believe of rouge and massage, and powder and cosmetics, to see real youth, not of the body but of the soul also—the eyes, the smile, the voice, the movements—all young. Why try to imitate that miracle? Who could? Who ever had?"
He went on shaking hands, bowing, smiling, laughing, jesting, making believe himself, but all the while the miracle of the youth and beauty of Suzanne Dale was running in his mind.
"What are you thinking about, Eugene?" asked Angela, coming to the window where he had drawn a rocking-chair and was sitting gazing out on the silver and lavender and gray of the river surface in the fading light. Some belated gulls were still flying about. Across the river the great manufactory was sending off a spiral of black smoke from one of its tall chimneys. Lamps were beginning to twinkle in its hundred-windowed wall. A great siren cry broke from its whistle as six o'clock tolled from a neighboring clock tower. It was still late February and cold.
"Oh, I was thinking of the beauty of this scene," he said wearily.
Angela did not believe it. She was conscious of something, but they never quarreled about what he was thinking nowadays. They had come too far along in comfort and solidity. What was it, though, she wondered, that he was thinking about?
Suzanne Dale had no particular thought of him. He was nice—pleasant, good-looking. Mrs. Witla was quite nice and young.
"Ma-ma," she said, "did you look out of the window at Mr. Witla's?"
"Yes, my dear!"
"Wasn't that a beautiful view?"