No mystery, Valeria, in that claret--I'll take my oath it's nothing but innocent juice of the grape.

If we can't believe in anything else, let's believe in juice of the grape.

Your good health, my dear." I adapted myself to the old man's genial humor as readily as I could.
We ate and we drank, and we talked of by-gone days.

For a little while I was almost happy in the company of my fatherly old friend.

Why was I not old too?
Why had I not done with love, with its certain miseries, its transient delights, its cruel losses, its bitterly doubtful gains?
The last autumn flowers in the window basked brightly in the last of the autumn sunlight.