THE SENSE OF THE PAST
through the window and out into the world of things less strange than those he might so well be felt to have filled the room with. But if he was grave he was not blank. "You see I don't know everything." And for a moment again he dropped.
During this lapse the Ambassador on his side smoked; to the effect of his presently saying: "Is he ninety-nine years old?"
It brought back his visitor. "No—for if he were I should be; and I'm exactly thirty, which does very well; for since I've become him, in particular, I call it young." Ralph hung fire—but really from the sense of now so interesting his auditor that keeping it up was almost a strain. Quite for himself, however, nothing was easier. "He's magnificent. He's really beautiful." That indeed made him catch himself, and this time he turned away. "What I mean is he was!"
"Before he ceased to be?"
"He hadn't—or he hasn't," Ralph returned, "ceased to be; for if that were the case I myself shouldn't be here before you in the solid soundness I've undertaken to impress you with. He was in a perfect prime that it was a joy, as a fellow-countryman, to behold. It was in that form that he again, for an hour, existed to me."
"For an hour?" the Ambassador asked as if to be exact.
"It was probably less—even for all that
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