I were five years younger I should have said instantly that the memory
would be one--"

"Which would disturb you, make you restless, cause you to neglect your
work, fill you with regret; and yet all too late--isn't that it?" She
laughed lightly and gave a lump of sugar to the cockatoo.

"You read me accurately. But why touch your words with satire?"

"I believe I read you better than you read me. I didn't mean to be
satirical. Don't you know that what often seems irony directed towards
others is in reality dealt out to ourselves? Such irony as was in my
voice was for myself."

"And why for yourself?" he asked quietly, his eyes full of interest.
He was cutting the end of a fresh cigar. "Was it"--he was about to
strike a match, but paused suddenly--"was it because you had thought the
same thing?"

She looked for a moment as though she would read him through and through;
as though, in spite of all their candour, there was some lingering
uncertainty as to his perfect straightforwardness; then, as if satisfied,
she said at last: "Yes, but with a difference. I have no doubt which
memory it will be. You will not wish to be again on the plains of
Nindobar."

"And you," he said musingly, "you will not wish me here?" There was no
real vanity in the question. He was wondering how little we can be sure
of what we shall feel to-morrow from what we feel to-day. Besides, he
knew that a wise woman is wiser than a wise man.