midnight
I never saw him again ; but his theory amused me , and , as trifles will sometimes do even in the gravest matters , decided me . So the result of all my hopes and reflections was , that I went back to England and to the student life that had been the dream of my youth . Three years of foreign travel , and five of retirement at home , brought my twenty-ninth birthday . I was still young , it is true ; but how changed from that prime of early manhood when I used to play Romeo at midnight to Hortense upon her balcony ! I looked at myself in the glass that morning , and contemplated the wearied , bronzed , and bearded face which '' ... seared by toil and something touched by time , '' now gave me back glance for glance . I looked older than my age by many years . My eyes had grown grave with a steadfast melancholy , and streaks of premature silver gleamed here and there in the still abundant hair which had been the solitary vanity of my youth .