The young girl, still in white duck, wore the same air of passive
injury I had noted in her the night before. Their faces all three
lighted up at sight of me; but they faded again at the cold and
meagre response I made to their smiles under correction of my wife's
fears of them. I own it was base of me; but I had begun to feel
myself that it might be too large a contract to attempt their
consolation, and, in fact, after one is fifty scarcely any romance
will keep overnight.

My wife glanced from them to me, and read my cowardly mind; but she
waited till they passed, as they did after an involuntary faltering
in front of us, and were keeping on down the path, looking at the
benches, which were filled on either hand. She said, "Weren't those
your friends?"

"They were the persons of my romance."

"No matter. Go after them instantly and bring them back here, poor
things. We can make room for them."

I rose. "Isn't this a little too idyllic? Aren't you rather
overdoing it?"

"Don't speak to me, Basil! I never heard of anything so atrocious.
Go on your knees to them if they refuse! They can sit here with me,
and you and he can stand. Fly!"

I knew she was punishing me for her own reluctance; but I flew, in
that sense of the term, and easily overhauled them in the tangle of
people coming and going in the path, and the nursemaids pushing