"But why, why? It is not as if you belonged anywhere else!" "Nowhere else in the world, nor yet in Picardy," he said. "I have always meant, when I grew old, to come to wherever you may be, and settle down, and grow up again with your children. But it seems the time is not yet. I am--not old." "You? of course not! You're not even fifty, are you?" "No," he sighed, "not even fifty. Oh, to be eighty or thereabouts, with the dross burnt out and only the spirit left, free--!" "I'd hate you to be all spirit, Stefan! Such an uncomfortable, unnatural person to play with: like one of those cherubim, with only wings and no _de quoi_ at all.--(You remember the miracle that happened once, when the Sistine Madonna said to the little angels in the picture with her, '_Assaiez-vous, mes enfants._' And they answered, '_Mais, Madame, nous n'avons pas de quoi!_'--) I never could understand people wanting to be old." She made a restless movement. "Perhaps you've had enough out of life to satisfy you, but me--Why, I feel as if I had not yet begun to live!" "Nor have you," he said quietly. "_Why_, Stefan!" she demanded, facing him. "Why don't I begin, then? Surely enough has happened to me, more than to most people. I fling myself into whatever comes along with all my heart. And yet--I don't seem to be there at all! It is as if the real me were looking on at somebody else who struggles and amuses herself and suffers. I'm tired of looking on, tired!" "Who isn't?" he said musingly. "We want to be in the thick of the fray, people like you and me, even if it kills us. But--we can't choose. A good deal is chosen for us before we're born--the color of our hair, the shapes of our noses" (he smiled and sighed), "doubtless the kinks in our brains--Come, the fire is out, and if I allow you to take cold, Ellen Neal will surely banish me from Eden with her flaming sword." As they walked briskly home in the early February twilight, she said after a long silence, "See here, Stefan, if you really are going when your book is finished, let's not waste any more time going about to silly parties and all that. You only do it to please me, and I only do it to show you off. Why should we pretend any longer?--Let's be together as much as we possibly can without bothering about anybody else! Shall we?" He looked rather startled. "I mean," she continued calmly, "to make no more engagements at all; and you needn't either--unless you wish to?" "I shall not wish to." "I thought not! There's really nobody here you care about talking to except me, is there? And there's nobody in the world I'd willingly waste a word on if you were about. So there, that's settled!" she said with a little breath of satisfaction. "It's a good thing you're old enough to be my father, Stefan, or I suppose people would begin to talk about us. Still," she added, "I'm glad you're not eighty!"