Mrs. Stapleton listened amusedly to the light talk between Mr. Chetwynd and Felicia, though with a certain surprise and wistfulness. Charming and courteous as the old man was when the mood for conversation was on him, she had never been able to open in him that light playful vein. What Frau Schultz had expressed coarsely, Katherine, with a finer nature, felt delicately. It was Felicia's fresh maidenhood that had instinctively gladdened the old man--a possession she herself had lost for ever, with which she could gladden no man's heart. She looked across the table and smiled at her own thought. What did it matter, after all? She had had the roses and lilies in her time, and they had not brought her any great happiness. Her life had been lived. Still, a woman of thirty mourns her lost youth--all the more if it has been a failure--just as an older woman mourns the death of a scrapegrace son. And though Katherine smiled at herself, she wished for some of it back, even to charm such an old, old man as Mr. Chetwynd. There will ever be much that is feminine in woman.
“You haye made a conquest,” she said soon afterwards to Felicia.
“Haven't I?” laughed the girl. “He is so sweet. Do you know, I think sweet people, when they grow very, very old, become quite young again.”
“Or, in this case, more accurately, isn't it that extremes touch?”
“Do you think I am so very young?” asked Felicia, seizing the objective. “I am twenty.”
“Happy girl,” said Katherine, smiling. “But what I meant was, that if you were thirty and he was fifty, you probably would have fewer points of contact.”
“Or, if I were ten and he were eighty, we would play together like kittens,” said Felicia, with girlish irreverence. “Well, it doesn't matter. He is the dearest old man in the world, and it was very nice of you to arrange for me to sit next to him.”
“It seems to have brightened you, Felicia.”
“Oh, yes, wonderfully. I was getting so bored and dull and miserable. It is not very gay now, but I have something to look forward to every day. And your letting me talk to you has made a great difference.”
“I am afraid I am not very entertaining,” said Katherine.
“Sometimes you are so sad,” said Felicia, sympathetically. “I wish I could help you.”