"Do you know, Mrs. Nightingale," Fenwick said, "it's always a night of this sort that brings back one's youth? You know what I mean?"
"I think I understand what you mean, Mr. Fenwick. You mean if"—she hesitated a moment—"if you could recollect."
He nodded a complete yes.
"Just that," said he. "I don't know if it's the millions of dry leaves sweeping about, or the moon scudding so quick through the clouds, or the smell of the Atlantic, or the bark coming off the plane-trees, or the wind blowing the roads into smooth dust-drifts and hard clear-ups you could eat your dinner off—I don't know what it is, but something or another on a night of this sort does always seem to bring old times back, when, as you say, they can be got back on any terms." He half-laughed, not in earnest. She found something to say, also not very much in earnest.
"Because we remember nights of the sort when we were small, and that brings them back."
"Come, I say now, Mrs. Nightingale! As if we couldn't remember all sorts of nights, and nothing comes back about them. It's this particular sort of night does the job."
"Did you think you remembered something, Mr. Fenwick?" There was anxiety in her voice, but no need to conceal it. It would as readily pass muster for anxiety that he should have remembered something as that he shouldn't.
"I can hardly go so far as that. But that joke of your little pussycat about the sweethearts got mixed with the smell of the wind and the chrysanthemums and dahlias and sunflowers." He pressed his fingers hard on his eyes again. "Do you know, there's pain in it—worse than you'd think! The half-idea that comes is not painful in itself—rather the contrary—but it gives my brain a twist at the point at which I can recall no more. Yes, it's painful!"
"But there was a half-idea? Forgive me if it gives you pain, and don't try. Only I'm not sure you ought not to try when the chance comes, for your own sake."