At worse than forty-five, he had told Morris curtly, he was more active
than the young men hardly out of the universities. To this Peyton had
replied that undoubtedly Lee had more energy than he; personally he
felt as old as--as Egypt. Ridiculous, Lee decided, trying to make up
his mind whether he might continue playing or return, beaten by
November, to the clubhouse. In the end, with numb fingers, he picked up
his ball, and walked slowly back over the empty course. The wind, now,
was behind him, and increasingly comfortable he grew reflective:

The comparison of Peyton Morris's age with his, recalling the fact, to
be precise, of his forty-seven years, created a vague questioning
dissatisfaction. Suddenly he saw himself--a comfortable body in a
comfortable existence, a happy existence, he added sharply--
objectively; and the stout figure in knickerbockers, rough stockings, a
yellow buckskin jacket and checked cap pulled over a face which, he
felt, was brightly red, surprised and a little annoyed him. In the
abrupt appearance of this image it seemed that there had been no
transitional years between his slender youth and the present. He had an
absurd momentary impression that an act of malicious magic had in a
second transformed him into a shape decidedly too heavy for grace. His
breathing, where the ground turned upward, was even slightly labored.

It was, Lee thought with all the intensity of an original discovery,
devilish unpleasant to grow old; to die progressively on one's feet, he
elaborated the fact. That was what happened to a man--his liver
thickened, his teeth went, his veins became brittle pipes of lime.
Worse than all that, his potency, the spirit and heat of living, met
without any renewal its inescapable winter. This might, did, occur
while his being was rebellious with vain hope. Today, in spite of the