“One respecting my age, St Armand. There are some men who grow old and childish, imbecile. The world laughs and suffers them. There are some men grow old in heart--the head left unaffected. With them all feelings, all desires, all passions die long before the body. I spoke of it last night. I am one of those few men wearied of life. No passing weariness. The chilliness has entered to my heart. I have asked what the world could give--and it has given freely, generously. Now, still young, comparatively young, a sudden languor has caught me under this outward shell of routine; it saps my energy, my spirits--turns the gay brightness of this sky to greyness, makes every golden hue the veriest dross. It is not discontent--it is that I have _lived_, and left the power of feeling far behind me.” “Was that your nightmare?” “No! That is my life--nightmare enough when one has realised it. My dream was this; I tell it for the humour it contains. Last night I saw two portraits, one myself--lifeless, shadowy, frozen ice where blood should flow, incapable of motion--and underneath, these words in plainest lettering, ‘Aged 65.’ And the other was that of Barringcourt, and there came the rub. He was as I last saw him twenty-five years ago--if anything, more full of life. At that age when all the graces of youth meet the more lasting ones, and neither are obscured. The blood ran in his veins, sparkling like that ruby ring upon your finger. He had power to feel, to enjoy, to fight and battle life for the pure pleasure, as it were just beginning--whilst I---- And underneath in plainest lettering, the words ‘not registered.’ A feeling of envy like the stab of a knife ran through my icy veins, pricking like crystal needles. The only life I felt was pain--pain of the lower order. And with it I awoke suddenly, feeling a presence in the vast empty room. But there was nothing. The grey, uninteresting dawn was struggling through the blinds--the deadening treadmill starting once again.” He paused, and a silence followed. What matter if the birds sing and the sun shines to the frozen-hearted? At last St Armand spoke in a low, musical, sympathetic voice. “You’ve lived too hard, too strenuously.” His mocking eyes were fixed upon the ground, his tongue lied gracefully. “To remain young you need light recreation. I scarcely wonder if your dream of Barringcourt is true. He essentially took life easy if all the tales one hears of him are true. Did not shut himself up in a monastery, lived for himself as well as others, was never the slave of appointments and meetings and ranting faddists, combined business and pleasure to an exact degree.” How truly he spoke, how very truly, and only once at the end did the big black eyes turn on his listener--then, for the moment only. What a subtle, persuasive note ran in the simple words spoken so quietly.