"I wish the winter would last for ever," he said presently.
"So do I," answered his companion, "it is the pleasantest time of the year. One does not feel that nature is dead because one is sure she will very soon be alive again."
"That is a charming idea," said John, "one might make a good subject of it."
"It is a little old, perhaps. I think I have heard it before--have not you?"
"All good ideas are old. The older the better," said John confidently. Mrs. Goddard could not resist the temptation of teazing him a little. They had grown very intimate in forty-eight hours; it had taken six months for Mr. Juxon to reach the point John had won in two days.
"Are they?" she asked quietly. "Is that the reason you selected me for the 'idea' of your ode, which you explained to me?"
"You?" said John in astonishment. Then he laughed. "Why, you are not any older than I am!"
"Do you think so?" she inquired with a demure smile. "I am very much older than you think."
"You must be--I mean, you know, you must be older than you look."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Goddard, still smiling, and just resting the tips of her fingers upon his arm as she stepped across a slippery place in the frozen road. "Yes, I am a great deal older than you."
John would have liked very much to ask her age, but even to his youthful and unsophisticated mind such a question seemed almost too personal. He did not really believe that she was more than five years older than he, and that seemed to be no difference at all.
"I don't know," he said. "I am nearly one and twenty."
"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Goddard, who had heard every detail concerning John from Mr. Ambrose, again and again. "Just think," she added with a laugh, "only one and twenty! Why when I was one and twenty I was--" she stopped short.
"What were you doing then?" asked John, trying not to seem too curious.
"I was living in London," she said quietly. She half enjoyed his disappointment.
"Yes," he said, "I daresay. But what--well, I suppose I ought not to ask any questions."
"Certainly not," said she. "It is very rude to ask a lady questions about her age."
"I do not mean to be rude again," said John, pretending to laugh. "Have you always been fond of skating?" he asked, fixing his eye upon a distant tree, and trying to look unconscious.