The tale tells how lightly and sweetly, and compassionately, too, then
spoke young Sylvie de Nointel:
"Ah, but, assuredly, Messire Florian, you do not argue with my pets
quite seriously. Old people always have some such queer notions. Of
course love all depends upon what sort of person you are. Now, as I see
it, mama and grandmama are not the sort of persons who have real
love-affairs. Devoted as I am to both of them, I cannot but perceive
they are lacking in real depth of sentiment. They simply do not
understand such matters. They are fine, straightforward, practical
persons, poor dears, and always have been, of course, for in things like
that one does not change, as I have often noticed. And father, and
grandfather, too, as I remember him, was kind-hearted and admirable and
all that, but nobody could ever have expected him to be a satisfactory
lover. Why, he was bald as an egg, the poor pet!"
And Sylvie laughed again at the preposterous notions of old people. She
flashed an especial smile at Florian. Her hand went out as though to
touch him, in an unforgotten gesture. "Old people do not understand,"
said Sylvie de Nointel in tones which took this handsome young fellow
ineffably into confidence.
"Mademoiselle," said Florian, with a sigh that was part relief and all
approval, "it is you who speak the truth, and your elders have fallen
victims to the cynicism of a crassly material age. Love is immortal when
it is really love and one is the right sort of person. There is the
love--known to how few, alas! and a passion of which I regret to find
your mother incapable--that endures unchanged until the end of life."
"I am so glad you think so, Messire Florian," she answered demurely.
"And do you not think so, mademoiselle?"
"How should I know," she asked him, "as yet?" He noted she had
incredibly long lashes.
"Thrice happy is he that convinces you!" says Florian. And about them,
who were young in the world's recaptured youth, spring triumphed with an
ageless rural pageant, and birds cried to their mates. He noted the red
brevity of her lips and their probable softness.
Meanwhile the elder women regarded each other.
"It is the season of May. They are young and they are together. Poor
children!" said Dame Melicent. "Youth cries to youth for the toys of
youth, and saying, 'Lo! I cry with the voice of a great god!'"
"Still," said Madame Adelaide, "Puysange is a good fief."
But Florian heeded neither of them as he stood there by the sunlit
stream, in which no drop of water retained its place for a moment, and
which yet did not alter in appearance at all. He did not heed his elders
for the excellent reason that Sylvie de Nointel was about to speak, and
he preferred to listen to her. For this girl, he knew, was lovelier than
any other person had ever been since Eve first raised just such
admiring, innocent, and venturesome eyes to inspect what must have
seemed to her the quaintest of all animals, called man. So it was with a
shrug that Florian remembered how he had earlier fancied other women for
one reason or another; since this, he knew, was the great love of his
life, and a love which would endure unchanged as long as his life
lasted.