"You did not discourage the lad, I am sure? He knew he had a chance,
eh?"
"I must decline to discuss that with you, Rowlandson."
"Chut! Chut!" murmured Mr. Rowlandson. "We are just two old fellows
jogging toward the grave together, even if you are a knight, and I am a
bookseller. Come, now, Sir Peter, tell me all about it. It will do you
good. I will wager you have been eating your heart out, for a month, in
this great, lonely house, with no one to whom you could talk of your
sorrow. Come, come, Sir Peter." Mr. Rowlandson rose. "Do not twenty-five
years of honest dealing with you entitle me to a little of your
confidence?"
Sir Peter stood silently by the fireplace, his back turned to the old
bookseller. Mr. Rowlandson set his empty wine-glass carefully on the
table, and then drew from their paper the valentines Phyllis had left at
the shop.
"I read an essay of Mr. Benson's, last night,--and one bit comes to me
now," he said. "The essay opens with an old French proverb, 'To make
one's self beloved is the best way to be useful.' Then the essayist goes
on to say that this is one of the deep sayings which young men, and even
young women, ignore; which middle-aged folk hear with a certain troubled
surprise? and which old people discover to be true, and think, with a
sad regret, of opportunities missed, and of years devoted, how
unprofitably, to other kinds of usefulness. We expect, like Joseph in
his dreams, says Mr. Benson, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars,
to say nothing of the sheaves, will make obeisance to us. And then, as
we grow older the visions fade. The eleven stars seem unaware of our
existence and we are content if, in a quiet corner, a single sheaf gives
us a nod of recognition."
Mr. Rowlandson smiled pleasantly, and patted the old valentines under
his hand.
"And then," he continued, "the essayist says, we make further
discoveries that give us pain; that when we have seemed to ourselves
most impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only a
talisman against poverty; that influence comes mostly to people who do
not pursue it, and do not even know they possess it; and that the real
rewards of life have fallen to simple-minded and unselfish people who
have not sought them. I fear I have not quoted the essay quite
accurately. I had a wonderful memory, once. It fails--it fails. But it
is very prettily put, in the book, and of course it is all quite true."
Mr. Rowlandson smiled again, at Sir Peter's back. He turned the
valentines over, one at a time:--
"My me! My me!" he mused, aloud. "Think of all the old loves, of bygone
years, these represent. School-boy and schoolgirl loves--most of them,
probably; springtime loves. The perfume will always linger in these
poor, faded leaves. You never married, Sir Peter, did you? Nor I; nor I.
My me! My me! I remember a girl--when I was twenty; in Hertfordshire--my
old home. Bessy was her name. She had the softest brown hair--in a
thick braid. She wore pink-checked gingham. My me! She married a
farrier, fifty years ago."
Mr. Rowlandson bent over one of the valentines, to read the verses,
finely engraved, beneath a spray of blue forget-me-nots:--
"Wilt thou be mine?
Dear love, reply,
Sweetly consent, or else deny.
Whisper softly; none shall know.
Wilt thou be mine?
Say aye, or no."
He looked up, smiling still, and went on,--"I fancy, Sir Peter, you,
too, have your memories; you can recall some sweet face of your youth,
for which you would have thought the world well lost; you can bring back
the memory of some fragrant day when you and she looked forward with
bright hopes to happy years that never were to be. A golden day; a
golden day."
Sir Peter still stood by the fireplace, silent.
"And now this dear girl of yours--your niece--has strayed away from you,
with the boy of her heart! But, how willingly,--how gladly, she would
come back to you, and be yours again--as well as his, if you only opened
your arms for her--and said the right words of welcome to her--and to
him. She would come back and renew your faith in youth, and hope, and
love, and all the beautiful things of this old earth--which we shall
leave so soon; so soon, that every lost day should be mourned. Ah, yes!
I am sure she waits only for the welcoming words."