"Of course not," the lady said, and waited eagerly.

If Tommy had been an expert he might have turned the conversation to
brighter topics, but he was not; there had already been long pauses,
and in dinner talk it is perhaps allowable to fling on any faggot
rather than let the fire go out. "It is odd that I should be talking
of it now," he said musingly.

"I suppose," she said gently, to bring him out of the reverie into
which he had sunk, "I suppose it happened some time ago?"

"Long, long ago," he answered. (Having written as an aged person, he
often found difficulty in remembering suddenly that he was two and
twenty.)

"But you are still a very young man."

"It seems long ago to me," he said with a sigh.

"Was she beautiful?"

"She was beautiful to my eyes."

"And as good, I am sure, as she was beautiful."

"Ah me!" said Tommy.

His confidante was burning to know more, and hoping they were being
observed across the table; but she was a kind, sentimental creature,
though stout, or because of it, and she said, "I am so afraid that my