Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/206

 so stately about his big empty house, filling it with pretty, useless woman’s things, lighting every corner with that last touch of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to add to his lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. He envied Dick this sister of his.

He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it had not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when they had buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted silver ring on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and though it had been many years since the little ring had really bound him to a personality long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open the door—he had forgotten it was there.

He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to him. The picture