But dinner at a seaside hotel was a pleasant change and
soon they were engaged in a lively conversation. It was a duet in
which one of them extolled the days that had gone, and the other
revived memories of "once upon a time." They were re-living the past.
Their eyes shone and the little lines in their faces disappeared. Oh!
golden days! Oh! time of roses which comes but once, if it comes at
all, and which is denied to so many of us--so many of us.
At dessert he whispered a few words into the ear of the waitress; she
disappeared and returned a few seconds later with a bottle of champagne.
"My dear Axel, what are you thinking of?"
"I am thinking of the spring that has past, but will return again."
But he wasn't thinking of it exclusively, for at his wife's reproachful
words there glided through the room, catlike, a dim vision of the nursery
and the porridge bowl.
However--the atmosphere cleared again; the golden wine stirred their
memories, and again they lost themselves in the intoxicating rapture
of the past.
He leaned his elbow on the table and shaded his eyes with his hand, as
if he were determined to shut out the present--this very present which,
--after all, had been of his own seeking.
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