Von Barwig hastily put the water pitcher into his trunk.
"What a rude man!" declared Miss Husted, as she came into the room, holding Skippy in one hand and a dish of hot steak and potatoes in the other. "Well, professor--" she said with her sweetest smile, "if Mahomet won't come to the breakfast, the breakfast must come to Mahomet! There's some hot coffee downstairs, oh, I see you have some," she said, as she looked at the coffee pot on the stove; "come now, sit down and eat!"
Von Barwig meekly obeyed her. In his excitement he had forgotten that he had not tasted a mouthful that day. He did not know how hungry he was until he sat down to the steaming hot coffee and the excellent little steak and potatoes furnished by Miss Husted. If she furnished the professor with food for the body, she also furnished him with food for the mind, for the dear good lady talked, and talked, and talked. Fortunately Von Barwig was a good listener; that is, he had the faculty of thinking of something else than what was being said. He had always been the repository for all her troubles, but until to-day she had never gone so far as to confess to him the reasons why she had never married, and would never marry, not if the last man in the world asked her. She told him of her first engagement and how it had resulted disastrously, how she had loaned the object of her affections large sums of money, until finally he ran away, leaving her penniless, and she had been compelled to work for a living. Von Barwig was very sympathetic that morning and it was this sympathy which drew her out.
"We live too much in the past, you and I," said Von Barwig. Then, after a pause, he added: "I, too, have had a loss. You live in your loss, I in mine. We remember what we should forget and we forget what we should remember. We must turn to the present, the here, and the now; the living claims our attention, not the dead. What is gone before is over and done with. Have done with it. The memory of the past kills the present and the future. It never cures it. Ah, dear lady, live in the present; it's your only chance of happiness. Jenny, August Poons, they are the present! Live in them, don't discount their happiness, your own happiness, by waiting for some impossible future for your niece. It is in them, my dear friend, you will find happiness. It is in them you will find affection and love. It is in their joy you will find joy; their children shall be your children. Don't deny yourself that happiness!"