"Dear me!" said the Vicar. "Fancy having to explain that! We begin existence here, you know, as babies, silly pink helpless things wrapped in white, with goggling eyes, that yelp dismally at the Font. Then these babies grow larger and become even beautiful--when their faces are washed. And they continue to grow to a certain size. They become children, boys and girls, youths and maidens (_Crack_), young men and young women. That is the finest time in life, according to many--certainly the most beautiful. Full of great hopes and dreams, vague emotions and unexpected dangers." "_That_ was a maiden?" said the Angel, indicating the door through which Delia had disappeared. "Yes," said the Vicar, "that was a maiden." And paused thoughtfully. "And then?" "Then," said the Vicar, "the glamour fades and life begins in earnest. The young men and young women pair off--most of them. They come to me shy and bashful, in smart ugly dresses, and I marry them. And then little pink babies come to them, and some of the youths and maidens that were, grow fat and vulgar, and some grow thin and shrewish, and their pretty complexions go, and they get a queer delusion of superiority over the younger people, and all the delight and glory goes out of their lives. So they call the delight and glory of the younger ones, Illusion. And then they begin to drop to pieces." "Drop to pieces!" said the Angel. "How grotesque!" "Their hair comes off and gets dull coloured or ashen grey," said the Vicar. "_I_, for instance." He bowed his head forward to show a circular shining patch the size of a florin. "And their teeth come out. Their faces collapse and become as wrinkled and dry as a shrivelled apple. 'Corrugated' you called mine. They care more and more for what they have to eat and to drink, and less and less for any of the other delights of life. Their limbs get loose in the joints, and their hearts slack, or little pieces from their lungs come coughing up. Pain...." "Ah!" said the Angel. "Pain comes into their lives more and more. And then they go. They do not like to go, but they have to--out of this world, very reluctantly, clutching its pain at last in their eagerness to stop...." "Where do they go?" "Once I thought I knew. But now I am older I know I do not know. We have a Legend--perhaps it is not a legend. One may be a churchman and disbelieve. Stokes says there is nothing in it...." The Vicar shook his head at the bananas. "And you?" said the Angel. "Were you a little pink baby?" "A little while ago I was a little pink baby." "Were you robed then as you are now?" "Oh no! Dear me! What a queer idea! Had long white clothes, I suppose, like the rest of them." "And then you were a little boy?" "A little boy." "And then a glorious youth?"