Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/274

 "That's right. . . . I think Sybil would like that." She sighed, in spite of herself, vaguely envious of these two. "But you're so young. How can you know for certain."

A shadow crossed his face and he said, "I'm twenty-five, Mrs. Pentland . . . but that's not the only thing. . . . I was brought up, you see, among the French . . . like a Frenchman. That makes a difference." He hesitated, frowning for a moment. "Perhaps I oughtn't to tell. . . . You mightn't understand. I know how things are in this part of the world. . . . You see, I was brought up to look upon falling in love as something natural . . . something that was pleasant and natural and amusing. I've been in love before, casually . . . the way young Frenchmen are . . . but in earnest, too, because a Frenchman can't help surrounding a thing like that with sentiment and romance. He can't help it. If it were just . . . just something shameful and nasty, he couldn't endure it. They don't have affairs in cold blood . . . the way I've heard men talk about such things since I've come here. It makes a difference, Mrs. Pentland, if you look at the thing in the light they do. It's different here. . . . I see the difference more every day."

He was talking earnestly, passionately, and when he paused for a moment she remained silent, unwilling to interrupt him until he had finished.

"What I'm trying to say is difficult, Mrs. Pentland. It's simply this . . . that I'm twenty-five, but I've had experience with life. Don't laugh! Don't think I'm just a college boy trying to make you think I'm a roué. Only what I say is true. I know about such things . . . and I'm glad because it makes me all the more certain that Sybil is the only woman in the world for me . . . the one for whom I'd sacrifice everything. And I'll know better how to make her happy, to be gentle with her . . . to understand her. I've learned now, and it's a thing which needs learning . ..