“Dadsie!” implored Maisie, her arms still about him. “Dadsie!--Say yes!--Just think it’s Mother and you starting for the first time!” Something broke down in him--almost the barrier against unmanliness. He blew his nose quickly and his smile had a twist in it as he looked into Maisie’s eyes. “That’s not fair!” he said. “But you’ve won. You shall have your chance.--You can start to-morrow, young man, but, mind--to work!” He stood up, went to the door. “Betty!” he called as he opened it. She stood there--smiling at him. He guessed suddenly that she had been there all the while. “Well?” she said, her eyes happy. He glanced round to where the two young lovers had stood. But they had vanished together into the garden. “I’ve been an old fool, my dear!” he said, smiling. “You’ve been an old dear!” she replied, putting an arm about him and coming with him into the room. “You couldn’t have made me a better birthday present!” Her eyes, also, were full of tears. “Forty to-day!” he said, “and it only seems like yesterday since you and I----” “And you still love me?” she queried, in a tone that had no doubt, looking up into his face. “I still love you,” he replied, happily positive. “Just as I did then!” Arms about each other, he led her in front of the big mirror over the fireplace and they smiled at the reflected picture of their union. “She called me an old man,” he said, a little ruefully, patting his hair before the mirror. “I’m getting a bit gray, too.” He looked at her. “But you, dear, you haven’t got a gray hair--and in my eyes you are just as beautiful as ever!” She shook her head slowly at him in delight. “And you are just as handsome!” He smiled down upon her. “Maisie accused me of being too old to remember what true love was,” he said. “Do you think so, dear?--Have we forgotten?” “Darling!” she whispered, as she snuggled close against him. They kissed, believing that their kiss was just the kiss of twenty years ago. It wasn’t. It was a symbol of infinitely more. * * * * * * He sat tapping his foot impatiently on the carpet of the ante-room to the council-chamber of the _Daily Rostrum_. Behind the closed door a meeting of the chief proprietors was in secret deliberation. He glanced at his watch, his dignity fretting at this unwonted exclusion, an unacknowledged anxiety unsettling his nerves. He knew himself to be on the threshold of a new epoch. An enterprising, young-blooded syndicate was acquiring the _Daily Rostrum_, was even then in conclave with the old proprietors, agreeing upon the final terms. They had sent for him--had asked him (oh, most courteously!) to give them yet five minutes.