ented long if he married a middle-aged woman. And what intelligent
woman is happy with an abnormal man?"

"Caroline, you are so dreadfully frank!"

"I say just what I think."

"But you think so drastically. And you are so free from sentiment."

"What is called sentiment is very often nothing but what is described in
the Bible as the lust of the eye."

This shaft, perhaps not intended to be a shaft, went home. Lady
Sellingworth reddened and looked down.

"I dare say it is," she murmured. "But--no doubt some of us are more
subject to temptation than others."

"I'm sure that is so."

"It's very difficult to give up deliberately nearly all that has made
life interesting and attractive to you ever since you can remember.
Caroline, would you advise me to--to abdicate? You know what I mean."

Miss Briggs's rather plain, but very intelligent, face softened.

"Adela, my dear," she said, "I understand a great deal more than you
have cared to hint at to me."

"I know you do."

"I think that unless you change your way of life in time you are heading
straight for tragedy. We both know a lot of women who try to defy the
natural law. Many of them are rather beautiful women. But do you think
they are happy women? I don't. I know they aren't. Youth laughs at
them. I don't know what you feel about it, but I think I would rather be
pelted with stones than be jeered at by youth in my middle age. Respect
may sound a very dull word, but I think there's something very warm
in it when it surrounds you as you get old. In youth we want love, of
course, all of us. But in middle age we want respect too. And nothing
else takes its place. There's a dignity of the soul, and women like
us--I'm older than you, but still we are neither of us very young any
longer--only throw it away at a terrible price. When I want to see
tragedy I look at the women who try to hang on to what refuses to stay
with them. And I soon have to shut my eyes. It's too painful. It's like
looking at bones decked out with jewels."

Lady Sellingworth sat very still. There was a long silence between the
two friends. When they spoke again they spoke of other things.

That night Lady Sellingworth told her maid to pack up, as she was
returning to London by the morning express on the following day.

At the Gare du Nord there was the usual bustle. But there was not a
great crowd of travellers for England, and Lady Sellingworth without
difficulty secured a carriage t