bly normal. But an interior drama; not to put too fine a point on
it, a drama of one's insides, and especially one that dealt with the
raising from the dead of that section which refined women ceased to
discuss after they had got rid of it--it was positively ghoulish. Drama
of any sort in this respectable old drawing-room, which might have been
photographed as the sarcophagus of all the Respectabilities, was
extremely offensive. And what a drama! Never had these old walls
listened to such a tale. Mrs. Vane and others like her had long since
outgrown the prudery of their mothers, who had alluded in the most
distant manner to the most decent of their internal organs, and called a
leg a limb; but the commonplace was their rock, and they had a sense of
sinking foundations.

Madame Zattiany, who knew exactly what was passing in their minds,
continued placidly: "Almost suddenly at the end of the fourth or fifth
week, it seemed to me that an actual physical weight that had depressed
my brain lifted, and I experienced a decided activity of mind and body,
foreign to both for many years. Nevertheless, the complete reenergizing
of both was very slow, the rejuvenation of appearance slower still.
Worn-out cells do not expand rapidly. The mental change was pronounced
long before the physical, except that I rarely felt fatigue, although I
spent many hours a day at the relief stations."

She paused and let her cool ironic glance wander over the intent faces
before her. "Not only," she went on with a slow emphasis, which made
them prick up their ears, "was the renewed power manifest in mental
activity, in concentration, in memory, but that distaste for new ideas,
for reorientation, had entirely disappeared. People growing old are
condemned for prejudice, smugness, hostility to progress, to the purposes
and enthusiasms of youth; but this attitude is due to aging glands alone,
all things being equal. They _cannot_ dig up the sunken tracks from the
ruts in their brain and lay them elsewhere; and they instinctively
protect themselves by an affectation of calm and scornful superiority, of
righteous conservatism, which deceives themselves; much as I had
assumed--and learned to feel--an attitude of profound indifference to my
vanished youth, and refused to attempt any transparent disguise with
cosmetics."

Intentness relaxed once more. Twelve pairs of eyes expressed at least
half as many sentiments. Mrs. Vane gazed at Mary Ogden,