A voice behind her caused her to start, though the words seemed to come out of some far distance. It was old Mr. Chetwynd. He had been somewhat ailing the last day or two, unable to go out. In a fit of restlessness, he had wandered down to the salon.
“Lost in the snow?” he asked, coming to her side.
“Yes,” she replied, with a half sigh. “I think so. Quite. I was beginning to doubt whether I should find my way safe home again, and to grow almost tearful.”
“You have no business with low spirits, my dear,” he replied, with a smile. “You should leave that to old people. Their hearts get lost in the snow sometimes, and when they feel them gradually getting stone-cold and frozen, then they may be excused for despairing.”
“What is to prevent it from being the same with young hearts?”
“That may keep them warm, but it doesn't prevent their being lost,” said Felicia, argumentatively.
“Well, what does it signify if you do go out of your way a little, when your legs are strong and your blood circulates vigorously?” he said cheerfully.
“But the young heart _can_ get lost,” said Felicia.
“I won't chop logic with you, young lady. I am trying to teach you that youth is a glorious thing and ought to be its own happiness. I suppose it is attempting to teach the unlearnable. Ah me! How beautiful it would be to be three and thirty again!”
“Three and thirty! Why, that is quite old!”
He looked at her with a touch of sadness and amusement, his head on one side.
“I suppose it is for you. I was forgetting. To me it is youth, the full prime of a man's life, when the world is at his feet. Later on he begins to feel it is on his shoulders. But at thirty-three--I was thinking of Raine. That is his age.”
“Have you heard from Mr. Chetwynd?” asked Felicia, after a longish pause.
“Oh, yes. He never keeps me long without news of him. There are only the two of us.”
“You seem very fond of one another,” said Felicia.
“I am proud of my son, my dear, and he is foolish enough to be proud of his poor old daddy.”
His voice had grown suddenly very soft, and he spoke with the simplicity of old age.
His eyes looked out into the distance, their brightness veiled with a strange tenderness. Felicia was touched, felt strongly drawn to him. She lost sense of the scholar of profound learning in that of the old man leaning on his son's strong arm. And the son's manhood grew in her eyes as the father's waned.