usually the most conceited of men: even as was James Houghton. But
to a woman, failure is another matter. For her it means failure to
live, failure to establish her own life on the face of the earth.
And this is humiliating, the ultimate humiliation.

And so the slow years crept round, and the completed coil of each
one was a further heavy, strangling noose. Alvina had passed her
twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and even her
twenty-ninth year. She was in her thirtieth. It ought to be a
laughing matter. But it isn't.

Ach, schon zwanzig
Ach, schon zwanzig
Immer noch durch's Leben tanz' ich

Jeder, Jeder will mich kuessen
Mir das Leben zu versuessen.

Ach, schon dreissig
Ach, schon dreissig
Immer Maedchen, Maedchen heiss' ich.
In dem Zopf schon graue Haerchen
Ach, wie schnell vergehn die Jaehrchen.

Ach, schon vierzig
Ach, schon vierzig
Und noch immer Keiner find 'sich.
Im gesicht schon graue Flecken
Ach, das muss im Spiegel stecken.

Ach, schon fuenfzig
Ach, schon fuenfzig
Und noch immer Keiner will 'mich;
Soll ich mich mit Baenden zieren
Soll ich einen Schleier fuehren?
Dann heisst's, die Alte putzt sich,
Sie ist fu'fzig, sie ist fu'fzig.

True enough, in Alvina's pig-tail of soft brown the grey hairs were
already showing. True enough, she still preferred to be thought of
as a girl. And the slow-footed years, so heavy in passing, were so
imperceptibly numerous in their accumulation.

But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and dreary
conclusion. Presumably, the _ordinary_ old-maid heroine nowadays is
destined to die in her fifties, she is not allowed to be the
long-liver of the by-gone novels. Let the song suffice her.

James Houghton had still another kick in him. He had one last scheme
up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular
novelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink,
like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he
pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. But he had
escaped, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like
a frail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs,
and making little splashes in warehouse-oddments. Miss Pinnegar
thought he had really gone quiet.

But alas