Then I knew the reason of my resentment against fate. It was because I was labeled as old while, in fact, I was still young. Of course that was it. Old? Ridiculous! When my daughter was gone I gazed searchingly at myself in the mirror. Old? Nonsense! I saw a man with no wrinkles and only a few crow's-feet such as anybody might have had; with hardly a gray hair on my temples and with not even a suggestion of a bald spot. My complexion and color were good and denoted vigorous health; my flesh was firm and hard on my cheeks; my teeth were sound, even and white; and my eyes were clear save for a slight cloudiness round the iris. The only physical defect to which I was frankly willing to plead guilty was a flabbiness of the neck under the chin, which might by a hostile eye have been regarded as slightly double. For the rest I was strong and fairly well--not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor and accuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class. Yes; I flattered myself that I looked like a boy of thirty, and I felt like one--except for things to be hereinafter noted--and yet middle-aged men called me "sir" and waited for me to sit down before doing so themselves; and my contemporaries were accustomed to inquire jocularly after my arteries. I was fifty! Another similar stretch of time and there would be no I. Twenty years more--with ten years of physical effectiveness if I were lucky! Thirty, and I would be useless to everybody. Forty--I shuddered. Fifty, I would not be there. My room would be vacant. Another face would be looking into the mirror. Unexpectedly on this legitimate festival of my birth a profound melancholy began to possess my spirit. I had lived. I had succeeded in the eyes of my fellows and of the general public. I was married to a charming woman. I had two marriageable daughters and a son who had already entered on his career as a lawyer. I was prosperous. I had amassed more than a comfortable fortune. And yet-- These things had all come, with a moderate amount of striving, as a matter of course. Without them, undoubtedly I should be miserable; but with them--with reputation, money, comfort, affection--was I really happy? I was obliged to confess I was not. Some remark in Charles Reade's Christie Johnstone came into my mind--not accurately, for I find that I can no longer remember literally--to the effect that the only happy man is he who, having from nothing achieved money, fame and power, dies before discovering that they were not worth striving for. I put to myself the question: _Were_ they worth striving for? Really, I did not seem to be getting much satisfaction out of them. I began to be worried. Was not this an attitude of age? Was I not an old man, perhaps, regardless of my youthful face?