"
She turned and regarded him with something less of anger, something
more of interest, in her eyes.
"Then why do not you reform?" she asked, in a matter-of fact tone.
"Why do you remain so bad, if you regret it?"
"There is nothing else to do," gloomily "Life is such a wretched bore
that the only thing to do is to seize what little spice there is in
it, and the spice, alas! will never bear analysis."
"Are you unhappy?" she demanded. Her eyes were still disapproving, but
her voice was a shade less cold.
He smiled, but at the same time he felt a little ashamed of
himself, the weapons were so trite, and it was so easy to manage an
unworldly-wise and romantic girl. There was nothing to do but go on,
however. "No, I am not unhappy, Miss Penrhyn," he said; "that is, not
unhappy in the sense you would mean. I am only tired of life. That is
all--but it is enough."
"But you are very young," she said, innocently. "You cannot yet be
thirty."
He laughed shortly. "I am twenty-eight, Miss Penrhyn--and I am--forty
five. You cannot understand, and it is well you should not.
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