“That is the tone of exaggerated affection, but not of conviction,” he said. “I am the masculine of what in a woman is termed _passée_. I might gain the esteem of a person of the opposite sex elderly like myself, but my gallant exterior can no longer inspire a romantic passion. My day is over. No, you have not hurt me. The sword of truth pierces, but it does not hurt.”
Then he broke into his good, sunny laughter, and rose and put his arm with rough tenderness round her shoulder, as he had done ever since she could walk.
“You are the youngest thing I have come across for a long time.”
Aline, as she nestled up against him on their way out of the studio, was thus impressed with a salutary consciousness of her extreme youth. But this in itself magnified Jimmie's age. She loved him with a pure passionate tenderness; no one, she thought, could know him without loving him; but her ideal of the hero of romance for whom fair ladies pined away in despairing secret was far different. She was too young as yet, too little versed in the signs by which the human heart can be read, to suspect what his playful question implied of sadness, hopelessness, renunciation.
On Sunday they lunched with Connie Deering. Morland and Norma and old Colonel Pawley, an ancient acquaintance of every one, were the only other guests. It was almost a family party, cried Connie, gaily; and it had been an inspiration, seeing that the invitations had been sent out before the engagement had taken place. Jimmie and Aline, being the first arrivals, had their hostess to themselves for a few moments.
“They both think it bad form to show a sign of it, but they are awfully gone upon each other,” Connie said. “So you must n't judge Norma by what she says. All girls like to appear cynical nowadays. It's the fashion. But they fall in love in the same silly way, just as they used to.”
“I am glad to hear they are fond of one another,” said Jimmie. “The deeper their love the happier I shall be.”
The little lady looked at him for a second out of the corner of her eye.
“It ought to be a commonplace thing to feel.”
“In the happiness of others there is always something that is pleasing. By giving him the lie like that you will make poor Rochefoucauld turn in his grave.”