She floundered helplessly, and paused in swift confusion. It was impossible, she found, to refer to her marriage; the word stuck in her throat. Always, it seemed to her in her distress, this galling knowledge that she was not legally married was being forced upon her realisation to her further humiliation. Unable to complete the sentence, she added lamely: "A man is never too old." He laughed. "You think I might find some one to take pity on me even now?" "I think," she returned warmly, "that the woman who wins you will be very fortunate. And you are only quizzing me in respect of age; you are quite young yet." "Only recently," he explained, "I have been called middle-aged, and it hurt my vanity. Age, like most things, is relative. When one is in one's teens forty appears senility; when one approaches forty it wears quite another aspect,--a comfortably matured, youthful aspect compared with which the teens are puerile. The heart defies wrinkles. I resent being described as middle-aged: it tempts me to the committal of youthful follies." They had reached the end of the path and were beyond the circle of light from the stoep. Dare brought up abruptly, and instead of turning, halted, and faced her in the gloom of the overhanging trees. His eyes scrutinised her face in the dimness with tender intensity. "This is the last lap," he said. "I'm going to take you back now, and you'll sing for me. `Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix.' ... Don't you love the words? They express better than any words in our language could just exactly how the dear particular voice affects one... Oh! little friend, I wish that fate did not decree that our paths in life must diverge just here, and so seldom cross." "That bears out what I have felt," said Pamela slowly, gazing steadily bade at him. "You won't come again." "Who can say?" he returned. "I feel--and I think you do too, though you are too wise and sweet to say so--that it is better I should stay away. I want you to bear me always kindly in your thoughts. And when I am near you I am never quite confident that I shall not say something which may lower me in your esteem. I shouldn't like to do that. Man is but human, and humanity has some of the brute instincts, though we flatter ourselves we are only a little lower than the angels,--that little makes all the difference. Shall we turn back?"