"You are no fool," she pursued; "you must have known that I loved you. Therefore I'm only confirming what you already know. But, believe me, Lord Henry, I am something more than one of your interesting cases." He protested. "Yes, I know; you always say women cannot understand men, because to comprehend is to comprise, and the smaller cannot comprise the greater----" He smiled approvingly. "You see how accurately I can quote you. That is possibly true. I do not claim to be able to understand you. But surely you will grant me that a woman may have a deep and very real knowledge of being in the presence of something exceptionally great, without precisely understanding it?" Lord Henry rose. He was blinking rapidly and tugging with more than usual force at his mesh of hair. "Am I impossible?" she asked hoarsely. "Is the disparity of our ages such that, hitherto, the thought of our being more than friends has been unthinkable to you?" He went to her side by the window. Words were forming on his lips, but they would make no sentence. She saw his lips moving and noticed his distress. "Is it not a sign of our deep sympathy that you are the only man in all England in whose presence I forget my ghastly age, my half century and more expended on futilities?" He took her hand. "Oh, Edith Delarayne, you wonderful creature!" he exclaimed; "that is the tragedy. You put your finger on the tragedy. If only you could be twenty again, what a wife you would make for me!" She gave a little sob and fell into his arms. "Oh, my boy, my dear boy!" she cried, and kissed his hand almost with the avidity of hunger, as it clasped hers on his shoulder. She released herself slowly and lightly dabbed her eyes. "When are you going away?" he demanded gravely. "The day after to-morrow," she replied. "Write to me as usual," he said. She caught his hand and grasped it firmly. "Oh, Lord Henry, be the same to me!" she pleaded. He laughed the plea to scorn. "Of course I'll always be the same to you. What do you think?" She saw that he meant it and moved lightly towards the door. "I must be going," she said, putting away her handkerchief, and trying to control an awkward catch in her breath which was reminiscent of her weeping. He urged her to stay for lunch; he offered to have her fetched by the Sanatorium car; he begged to be allowed to accompany her back to Ashbury; but she stalwartly refused; and in a moment he and St. Maur were watching her, sprightly as a girl, tripping back along the dusty road to the station. "My boy, my dear boy," he muttered to St. Maur, "that is what she felt, that is what she said. The unconscious voice in her knew the desired relationship and expressed the wish, although the conscious mind thought only of 'husband.'" CHAPTER IX "So inexhaustibly rich is the sun that even when it goes down it pours its gold into the very depths of the sea; and then even the poorest boatman rows with golden oars."