A Rose of Yesterday

his sister and Sylvia. His face was drawn and weary and the lids hung a little, in

ogether, there is a whole language in one's neighbour's elbow and an unlimited power of expression in its way of avoiding collisions. Very perceptive people understand that. Primarily, in savage life, the bold man turns his elbows out, while the timid one presses them to his sides, as though not to give offence with them. Society teaches us to put on some little airs of timidity as a substitute for the modesty that few feel, and we accordingly draw in our elbows when we are near any o

he glanced at Wimpole's tired face, just when he was looking a little away from her, and she was startled by the change in his features since the early afternoon. It

icent specimens of humanity such as one sees occasionally in travelling but whom one very rarely knows in acquaintance. He could not have been more than twenty-eight years old, straight in his seat, broad-shouldered, with thick, close, golden hair and splendi

s in reality of precisely the same age as her father. Sylvia looked down again and reflected that she must have made a mistake with herself. Yo

. She did not even wonder why she had thought the colonel young until then. The sudde

e first time in her life, she felt that natural, foolish, human pity which only extreme youth feels for old age, and she wondered why she had not always felt it, for it seemed quite natural, and was altogether in accordance with the rest of her feelings for the colonel, with her reverence for his perfect character, her admiration for his past deeds, her attachment to his

turned to her, holding

atural smile came back. "Rachel," he added, speaking to his sister across

water she drank. She solemnly raised the glass, and inclined h

said Sylvia,

eadily and untunefully all around. Sylvia felt lonely in the unindividual atmosphere of the Swiss hotel. She hated the terribly handsome young man, with a mortal h

she said, to ca

el,' half playfully, and because she had hated the suggestion of age

r," he said.

't I?" asked Sylvia, very low indeed, and

rteous man, and was a

n his rather old-fashioned way, and he smiled affectionate

On the contrary, her

nderstand--or I did not realize--I don't know. You have been so much to me all my life, and there is nobody like you, of course. It seem

aking gravely now. "Yes, I suppose that love is better when people believe each o

question that helped to break through the awk

hink there is only one kind worth having. It is the kind

ylvia, innocently, and

ot that enough, my dear?" he asked. "To love one woman or man with all one's heart for thirty or forty years? Never to be disappointe

eed. But you did not say all

then," he added, "there are a great many degrees, far below that. I am

ked almost angry as

she answered energetically. "It is nothing but a miserabl

ou," said Wimpole, sm

almost offended by his look.

d very hard, my d

world!" cr

oth because it was contrary to his character, and for Sylvia's sake, who must surely one day know something of it. So he did not laugh at her sweeping declaration. She hated the world before knowing it, but he hated it in full knowledge. That was a bond of s

a first humiliation in her own eyes. She thought that she had lowered herself in the colonel'

to herself, and her eyes gleamed with young anger, while h

watched

for hating yourse

er eyes to him. Then she

y thoughts," she answ

mean to.

lp it, of course. I w

e, and on Sylvia's other side Miss Wimpole was silently planning a charitable institution of