"Her life and mine are
as far apart as the poles."
"I had an odd fancy when I saw you with her," Lady Ruth said slowly.
"She is very good-looking--and not so absurdly young."
"The fancy was one," he remarked coldly, "which I think you had better
get rid of."
"In a way," she continued thoughtfully, "I should like to get rid of
it, and yet--how old are you, Wingrave? Well, I know. You are very
little over forty. You are barely in the prime of life, you are
strong, you have the one thing which society today counts almost
divine--great, immeasurable wealth! Can't you find someone to thaw the
snows?"
"I loved a woman once," he answered. "It was a long time ago, and it
seems strange to me now."
Lady Ruth lifted her eyes to his, and their lambent fires were
suddenly rekindled.
"Love her again," she murmured. "What is past is past, but there are
the days to come! Perhaps the woman, too, is a little lonely."
"I think not," he answered calmly. "The woman is married, she has
lived with her husband more or less happily for a dozen years or so!
She is a little ambitious, a little fond of pleasure, but a leader of
society, and, I am sure, a very reputable member of it. To love her
again would be as embarrassing to her--as it would be difficult for
me. You, my dear Lady Ruth, I am convinced, would be the last to
approve of it."
"You mock me," she murmured, bending her head. "Is forgiveness also an
impossibility?"
"I think," he said, "that any sentiment whatever between those two
would be singularly misplaced.
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