He stared, but he seemed scarcely to understand me. "Old--old!" he kept
stupidly repeating. "If she is old, what am I? If her beauty has faded,
where--where is my strength? Has life been a dream? Have I worshipped
too long--have I loved too well?" The charm, in truth, was broken. That
the chord of illusion should have snapped at my light accidental touch
showed how it had been weakened by excessive tension. The poor fellow's
sense of wasted time, of vanished opportunity, seemed to roll in upon his
soul in waves of darkness. He suddenly dropped his head and burst into
tears.

I led him homeward with all possible tenderness, but I attempted neither
to check his grief, to restore his equanimity, nor to unsay the hard
truth. When we reached my hotel I tried to induce him to come so.

"We will drink a glass of wine," I said, smiling, "to the completion of
the Madonna."

With a violent effort he held up his head, mused for a moment with a
formidably sombre frown, and then giving me his hand, "I will finish it,"
he cried, "in a month! No, in a fortnight! After all, I have it
_here_!" And he tapped his forehead. "Of course she's old! She can
afford to have it said of her--a woman who has made twenty years pass
like a twelvemonth! Old--old! Why, sir, she shall be eternal!"

I wished to see him safely to his own door, but he waved me back and
walked away with an air of resolution, whistling and swinging his cane. I
waited a moment, and then followed him at a distance, and saw him proceed
to cross the Santa Trinita Bridge. When he reached the middle he
suddenly paused, as if his strength had deserted him, and leaned upon the