But that wasn't at all what I meant."Ah," I said, "you put it the other way at Paddington--which was much more the right one."He had quite forgotten."How then did I put it?"As he had done before, I got rid of my ash."She hasn't grown very much less plain.She has only grown very much less old.""Ah, well," he laughed, but as if his interest had quickly dropped, "youth is--comparatively speaking--beauty.""Oh, not always.Look at poor Briss himself.""Well, if you like better, beauty is youth.""Not always, either," I returned."Certainly only when it IS beauty.
To see how little it may be either, look," I repeated, "at poor Briss.""I thought you told me just now not to!" He rose at last in his impatience.
"Well, at present you can."
I also got up, the other men at the same moment moved, and the subject of our reference stood in view.This indeed was but briefly, for, as if to examine a picture behind him, the personage in question suddenly turned his back.Long, however, had had time to take him in and then to decide.
"I've looked.What then?"
"You don't see anything?"
"Nothing."
"Not what everyone else must?"
"No, confound you!"
I already felt that, to be so tortuous, he must have had a reason, and the search for his reason was what, from this moment, drew me on.I had in fact half guessed it as we stood there.But this only made me the more explanatory."It isn't really, however, that Brissenden has grown less lovely--it's only that he has grown less young."To which my friend, as we quitted the room, replied simply: "Oh!"The effect I have mentioned was, none the less, too absurd.The poor youth's back, before us, still as if consciously presented, confessed to the burden of time."How old," I continued, "did we make out this afternoon that he would be?""That who would?"
"Why, poor Briss."