Maltravers was silent, for his flexile and excitable fancy was conjuring up a thousand shapes along the transparent air, or upon those shadowy violet banks. He was not thinking, he was imagining. His genius reposed dreamily upon the calm, but exquisite sense of his happiness. Alice was not absolutely in his thoughts, but unconsciously she coloured them all--if she had left his side, the whole charm would have been broken. But Alice, who was not a poet or a genius, _was_ thinking, and thinking only of Maltravers.... His image was “the broken mirror” multiplied in a thousand faithful fragments over everything fair and soft in that lovely microcosm before her. But they were both alike in one thing--they were not with the Future, they were sensible of the Present--the sense of the actual life, the enjoyment of the breathing time was strong within them. Such is the privilege of the extremes of our existence--Youth and Age. Middle life is never with to-day, its home is in to-morrow... anxious, and scheming, and desiring, and wishing this plot ripened, and that hope fulfilled, while every wave of the forgotten Time brings it nearer and nearer to the end of all things. Half our life is consumed in longing to be nearer death. “Alice,” said Maltravers, waking at last from his reverie, and drawing that light, childlike form nearer to him, “you enjoy this hour as much as I do.” “Oh, much more!” “More! and why so?” “Because I am thinking of you, and perhaps you are not thinking of yourself.” Maltravers smiled and stroked those beautiful ringlets, and kissed that smooth, innocent forehead, and Alice nestled herself in his breast. “How young you look by this light, Alice!” said he, tenderly looking down. “Would you love me less if I were old?” asked Alice. “I suppose I should never have loved you in the same way if you had been old when I first saw you.” “Yet I am sure I should have felt the same for you if you had been--oh! ever so old!” “What, with wrinkled cheeks, and palsied head, and a brown wig, and no teeth, like Mr. Simcox?” “Oh, but you could never be like that! You would always look young--your heart would be always in your face. That clear smile--ah, you would look beautiful to the last!” “But Simcox, though not very lovely now, has been, I dare say, handsomer than I am, Alice; and I shall be contented to look as well when I am as old!” “I should never know you were old, because I can see you just as I please. Sometimes, when you are thoughtful, your brows meet, and you look so stern that I tremble; but then I think of you when you last smiled, and look up again, and though you are frowning still, you seem to smile. I am sure you are different to other eyes than to mine... and time must kill _me_ before, in my sight, it could alter _you_.” “Sweet Alice, you talk eloquently, for you talk love.”