"Do you really mean that you would like to try again ?" I asked.
"Eh?
What ?" And just the way he turned and looked at me showed how many _miles_ he'd been away from me.
"Try it again, you know--what you said," I reminded him.
"Oh, that!" Such a funny look came to his face, half ashamed, half vexed.

"I'm afraid I _have_ been--talking, my dear." "Yes, but would you ?" I persisted.
He shook his head; then, with such an oh-that-it-could-be! smile, he said: "Of course;--we all wish that we could go back and do it over again--differently.

But we never can." "I know; like the cloth that's been cut up into the dress," I nodded.
"Cloth?
Dress ?" frowned Father.
"Yes, that Mother told me about," I explained.

Then I told him the story that Mother had told me--how you couldn't go back and be unmarried, just as you were before, any more than you could put the cloth back on the shelf, all neatly folded in a great long web after it had been cut up into a dress.
"Did your mother say--that ?" asked Father.

His voice was husky, and his eyes were turned away, but they were not looking at the dancers.
He was listening to me now.