Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (272 page)

But
when
his
own
time
came,
and
he
drifted
with
her
out
upon the
changing
floor
to
the
music
of
the
latest
waltz
from
Paris,
his jealousies
and
anxieties
melted
from
him
like
a
mantle
of
snow.
Blind with
enchantment,
he
felt
that
life
was
just
beginning.

"You
and
your
brother
got
here
just
as
we
did,
didn't
you?"
asked Hildegarde,
looking
up
at
him
with
eyes
that
were
like
bright
blue enamel.

Benjamin
hesitated.
If
she
took
him
for
his
father's
brother,
would it
be
best
to
enlighten
her?
He
remembered
his
experience
at
Yale, so
he
decided
against
it.
It
would
be
rude
to
contradict
a
lady;
it
would be
criminal
to
mar
this
exquisite
occasion
with
the
grotesque
story of
his
origin.
Later,
perhaps.
So
he
nodded,
smiled,
listened,
was happy.

"I
like
men
of
your
age,"
Hildegarde
told
him.
"Young
boys
are
so idiotic.
They
tell
me
how
much
champagne
they
drink
at
college, and
how
much
money
they
lose
playing
cards.
Men
of
your
age
know how
to
appreciate
women."

Benjamin
felt
himself
on
the
verge
of
a
proposal—with
an
effort he
choked
back
the
impulse.

"You're
just
the
romantic
age,"
she
continued—"fifty.
Twenty-five is
too
worldly-wise;
thirty
is
apt
to
be
pale
from
overwork;
forty
is
the age
of
long
stories
that
take
a
whole
cigar
to
tell;
sixty
is—oh,
sixty is
too
near
seventy;
but
fifty
is
the
mellow
age.
I
love
fifty."

Fifty
seemed
to
Benjamin
a
glorious
age.
He
longed
passionately
to be
fifty.

"I've
always
said,"
went
on
Hildegarde,
"that
I'd
rather
marry
a man
of
fifty
and
be
taken
care
of
than
marry
a
man
of
thirty
and
take care
of
him."

For
Benjamin
the
rest
of
the
evening
was
bathed
in
a
honey-colored mist.
Hildegarde
gave
him
two
more
dances,
and
they
discovered
that they
were
marvellously
in
accord
on
all
the
questions
of
the
day.
She was
to
go
driving
with
him
on
the
following
Sunday,
and
then
they would
discuss
all
these
questions
further.

Going
home
in
the
phaeton
just
before
the
crack
of
dawn,
when the
first
bees
were
humming
and
the
fading
moon
glimmered
in
the cool
dew,
Benjamin
knew
vaguely
that
his
father
was
discussing
wholesale
hardware.

".
.
.
And
what
do
you
think
should
merit
our
biggest
attention after
hammers
and
nails?"
the
elder
Button
was
saying.

"Love,"
replied
Benjamin
absent-mindedly.

"Lugs?"
exclaimed
Roger
Button.
"Why,
I've
just
covered
the
question
of
lugs."

Benjamin
regarded
him
with
dazed
eyes
just
as
the
eastern
sky
was suddenly
cracked
with
light,
and
an
oriole
yawned
piercingly
in
the quickening
trees.
.
.
.

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