"I ought not to be, I suppose," he said gloomily. "I can never hope to marry her." "Why despair?" the old solicitor exclaimed kindly. "You have youth, talent, and many influential friends, therefore there is no reason why your success at the Bar should not be as great as other men's." "Or as small as most men's," he laughed bitterly. "No, Harrison, without good spirits it is impossible for one to do one's best. Those I don't possess just now." "Well, if, because you are parted a few months, the lady pleases to forsake you, as you suspect, then all I can say is that you are very fortunate in becoming aware of the truth ere it is too late," the elder man argued. "But I love her," he blurted forth. "I can't help it." "Then, under the circumstances, I would, if I were you, stick to my profession and try and forget all that's past. Bitter memories shorten life and do nobody any good." "Ah! I only wish I could get rid of all thought of the past," he sighed, gazing fixedly into the fire. "You are my friend and adviser, Harrison, or I should not have spoken thus to you." The old man, with his blue foolscap still in his thin, bony hand, paused, regarded his client's son with a look of sympathy for a few moments, and sighed. "Your case," he said at last, "is only one of many thousands. All of us, in whatever station, have our little romances in life. We have at some time or another adored a woman who, after the first few months, has cast us aside for a newer and perhaps richer lover. There are few among us who cannot remember a sweet face of long ago, a voice that thrilled us, a soft, caressing hand that was smooth as satin to our lips. We sigh when we recollect those long-past days, and wonder where she is, who she married, and whether, in her little debauches of melancholy, she ever recollects the man who once vowed he would love her his whole life through. Years have gone since then, yet her memory clings to us as vividly as if she were still a reality in our lives. We still love her and revere her, even though she cast us aside, even though we are not certain whether she still exists. The reason of all this is because when we are young we are more impressionable than when we are older, with wider and more mature experience of the world. The woman we at twenty thought adorable we should pass by unnoticed if we were forty. Thus it is that almost all men cherish in their hearts a secret affection for some woman who has long ago gone out of their lives, passed on, and forgotten them." George smiled bitterly at the old man's philosophy. "Are you, then, one of those with a romance within you?" he asked, his face suddenly becoming grave again.