"Don't you think I did?"

"Perhaps so. There's a sympathetic link of youth between you. You are
gloriously young, both of you, little daughter. And youth turns
naturally to youth, though I'm afraid old age doesn't always turn
naturally to old age."

"What do you know about old age, Madre? You haven't a gray hair."

She spoke with anxious encouragement.

"It's true. My hair declines to get gray."

"I don't believe you'll ever be gray."

"Probably not. But there's another grayness--Life behind one instead
of before; the emotional--"

She stopped herself. This was not for Vere.

"They're close in," she said, looking out of the window.

She waved her hand. The big man in the stern of the boat took off his
hat in reply, and waved his hand, too. The rower pulled with the
vivacity that comes to men near the end of a task, and the boat shot
into the Pool of the Saint, where Ruffo was at that moment enjoying
his third cigarette.

"I'll run down and meet Monsieur Emile," said Vere.