"Do!" she said in her frank and very conscious way. "I'm afraid of London on a Sunday."

"Afraid!"

"As I'm afraid of a heavy, dull person with a morose expression. Please don't be angry."

Craven smiled.

"I know! Paris is much lighter in hand than London on a Sunday."

"Isn't it? But there are people in London! Isn't she a precious person?"

"Lady Sellingworth?"

"Yes. You have marvellous old women in London who do all that we young people do, and who look astonishing. They might almost be somewhere in the thirties when one knows they are really in the sixties. They play games, ride, can still dance, have perfect digestions, sit up till two in the morning and are out shopping in Bond Street as fresh as paint by eleven, having already written dozens of acceptances to invitations, arranged dinners, theatre parties, heaven knows what! Made of cast iron, they seem. They even manage somehow to be fairly attractive to young men. They are living marvels, and I take off my toque to them. But Lady Sellingworth, quite old, ravaged, devastated by time one might say, who goes nowhere and who doesn't even play bridge--she beats them all. I love her. I love her wrinkled distinction, her husky voice, her careless walk. She walks anyhow, like a woman alone on a country road. She looks even older than she is. But what does it matter? If I were a man--"

"Would you fall in love with her?" Craven interposed.

"Oh, no!"

She shot a blue glance at him.

"But I should love her--if only she would let me. But she wouldn't. I feel that."

"I never saw her till today. She charmed me."

"Of course. But she didn't try to."

"Probably not."

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