s
husbands go. That much I will say for him gladly; and if any widow says
more than that, Florian, do you beware of her, for she is an untruthful
woman."

"Be that as it may," replied Florian, "it is not quite becoming to speak
thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth; there is no
telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to
me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor; but even so, a little
charitable prevarication would be far more edifying."

He spoke with such earnestness that there fell a silence. The women
seemed to pity him. And in the silence Florian heard from afar young
persons returning from the woods behind Storisende, and bringing with
them the May-pole. They were still singing.

Sang they:

"Unwillingly foreknowing
That love with May-time flees,
We take this day's bestowing,
And feed on fantasies--"

IV. YOUTH SOLVES IT

The tale tells how lightly and sweetly, and compassionately, too, then
spoke young Sylvie de Nointel:

"Ah, but, assuredly, Messire Florian, you do not argue with my pets
quite seriously. Old people always have some such queer notions. Of
course love all depends upon what sort of person you are. Now, as I see
it, mama and grandmama are not the sort of persons who have real
love-affairs. Devoted as I am to both of them, I cannot but perceive
they are lacking in real depth of sentiment. They simply do not
understand such matters. They are fine, straightforward, practical
persons, poor dears, and always have been, of course, for in things like
that one does not change, as I have often noticed. And father, and
grandfather, too, as I remember him, was kind-hearted and admirable and
all that, but nobody could ever have expected him to be a satisfactory
lover. Why, he was bald as an egg, the poor pet!"

And Sylvie laughed again at the preposterous notions of old people. She
flashed an especial smile at Florian. Her hand went out as though to
touch him, in an unforgotten gesture. "Old people do not understand,"
said Sylvie de Nointel in tones which took this handsome young fellow
ineffably into confidence.

"Mademoiselle," said Florian, with a sigh that was part relief and all
approval, "it is you who speak the truth, and your elders have fallen
victims to the cynicism of a crassly material age. Love is immortal when
it is really love and one is the right sort of person. There is the
love--known to how few, alas! and a pa