She excuses, but does not forget."
"Then you told her your love?" asked the elder. The younger looked
up with a smile:
"I sat by her side half an hour--what else was I doing the while?
"What, sit by the side of a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,
And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to
her eye?
"No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as
the look,
And I held up herself to herself,--that was more than she got from
her book."
"Young blood!" laughed the elder; "no doubt you are voicing the mode
of To-Day:
But then we old fogies at least gave the lady some chance for delay.
"There's my wife (you must know),--we first met on the journey from
Florence to Rome:
It took me three weeks to discover who was she and where was her home;
"Three more to be duly presented; three more ere I saw her again;
And a year ere my romance BEGAN where yours ended that day on the
train."
"Oh, that was the style of the stage-coach; we travel to-day by
express;
Forty miles to the hour," he answered, "won't admit of a passion
that's less."
"But what if you make a mistake?" quoth the elder. The younger half
sighed.
"What happens when signals are wrong or switches misplaced?" he
replied.
"Very well, I must bow to your wisdom," the elder returned, "but
submit
Your chances of winning this woman your boldness has bettered no whit.
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