uldn't I? I
love you. I'm eager to demonstrate that I'm not too old a dog to learn
new tricks."

She only shook her head, and, finding words more tolerable than silence,
he proceeded:

"I've discovered the fountain which Ponce de Leon missed. Henceforth I
mean to go on growing younger."

"And yet, Eben--" She was still looking at him with that directness
which hinted at some thought foreign to her words--something as yet
unmentioned which had left her unstrung. "It's not really a congenial
role to you--this one of reshaping your life. At heart you hate it....
This house proves that. So does this room--and its contents."

The pause which separated the final words brought a sinking sensation at
the pit of his stomach, and the discomfort of a fencer, dueling in the
dark--a swordsman who recognizes that his cleverness is outmatched. His
question came with a staccato abruptness.

"How is that?"

Conscience rose from her chair and for a moment stood letting her eyes
travel about the walls, the furniture, the pictures. As they wandered,
the husband's gaze followed them, and when they rested for an instant on
the open strong box and the untidy papers, his alarm gained a brief
mastery so that he stepped hurriedly forward, placing himself between
her and the danger.

"What were you saying?" he questioned nervously.

"I was calling your attention to this room. Look at it. If you didn't,
at heart, hate all change--all innovation, you couldn't have lived here
this long without having altered it."

"Altered it--why?"

Conscience laughed. "Well, because it's all unspeakably depressing, for
one thing. Outside of prisons, I doubt if there is anything drearier in
the world than Landseer engravings in black frames and fantastically
grained pine trying to be oak--unless it's hair-cloth sofas and
portraits that have turned black."

The lord of the manor spoke in a crestfallen manner, touched with
perplexity. To what was all this a preamble?

"That portrait is of an ancestor of mine," he said and his wife once
more laughed, though this time his anxiety fancied there was irony in
it. "All right," she said, "but wouldn't it have been quite as
respectful and much more cheerful to send him on a visit to some painter
who takes in dingy ancestors and does them over?"

"I hadn't thought of it," he acknowledged, but the idea did not seem to
delight him.

"No." They were still standing, she facing the table and he facing her,
maki