"As Apollo--and better still--_young_," he answers, with a short, dry laugh that has a ring of bitterness in it. The mother's heart, quick in instinct, catches the subtle intonation of almost envy in that one concluding word. She lays her white hand on his shoulder and looks up into the handsome, proud, world-weary face with its cold, curled lips--not pityingly--St. Leon has never borne pity in his life--but with fondest love and admiration. "As young as you, St. Leon?" she asks, speciously solving his unacknowledged wound. "Why, mother, how you talk!" he says, not unkindly. "Why, I am _old_. Thirty five my last birthday, and the crow's-feet, and gray hairs not so far away!" "Do you care, my son?" she asks him, a little wistfully. "Care--why should I?" he asks, frowning. "And yet I have no mind to contradict the poet, who says: "'The loss of youth is sadness To all who think or feel-- A wound no after gladness Can ever wholly heal; And yet so many share it, We learn at last to bear it.'" His glance wanders from the window out into the beautiful grounds, where Laurel Vane is wandering, bright-eyed, bright-haired, lovely, in the golden springtime of youth. "Sweet face, swift eyes, and gleaming Sun-gifted mingling hair-- Lips like two rose-buds dreaming In June's fruit-scented air. Life, when her spring days meet her, Hope, when her angels greet her, Is not more calm--nor sweeter, And love is not more fair." "After all, there is nothing on earth so beautiful as youth," he says, aloud, his dark eyes following the flutter of that white robe among the trees. She looks furtively past him and sees Laurel, too, the sunlight shining on the fair young face, her white apron-overskirt heaped high with flowers after her usual fashion, the refrain of a song on her lips that floats back to them in snatches. It is Mrs. Browning's--"The Lady's Yes." "Yes, I answered you last night, No, this morning, sir, I say-- Colors seen by candle-light, Will not look the same by day. "When the viols played their best, Lamps above and laughs below, Love me sounded like a jest, Fit for yes, or fit for no." Mrs. Le Roy laid her delicate hand, all glittering with jewels, on the shoulder of her idolized son. "St. Leon, you talk of growing old," she said. "My son, does not the flight of time remind you that you are neglecting a duty you owe to yourself?" He turned to look curiously into her face, and the white figure out among the trees wandered further away, seeking new delights, like the bright-winged butterflies, among the flowers. The echo of her song died in the distance. "Duty, mother," he said, carelessly. "I did not know that the vocabulary of my life contained that hard word. I thought all I had to do was to 'eat, drink, and'"--sarcastically--"'be merry.'"