"'Then again,' I went on, 'our ages are too far apart. Even if you were the sort I mean, we shouldn't be starting even. The fight would be half won when I came in, and that would never do. I shouldn't feel as if I were part of your life. A marriage like that wouldn't be a marriage, it would be a sweet little middle-aged idyll!'
"He flushed at that. 'A man can't change his age, Selina; you have no right to taunt me with that.'
"'I didn't mean to taunt you—I only wanted to explain,' said I. 'And the last thing in the world I want to do is to hurt you.'
"'But that's the only thing a man can't change,' he went on after a moment, paying no attention to my apology. After another pause he added: 'I shan't give you up, mind,' and when we talked again it was of other things.
"I went on seeing him as before, though not quite so often. Then presently I went away on some long visits and did not see him for several months. When I came back I noticed that his manner was more animated than before, and that somehow he looked younger. I remember being quite pleased.—He was thirty-four at the time, and I not quite twenty-three.
"It was perfectly evident, even to me, that he was working to win me. I saw it, but I did not pay any attention to it; when I thought about it at all it was with a sort of amusement. One day he came to me apparently very much pleased about something.
"'Congratulate me, Selina,' he said; 'I've just got my appointment.'
"'Appointment?' said I. I truthfully had no idea what he was talking about.
"'Yes,' he went on, 'I begin work on the board next week.'
"'What board?'