ubject estimate that it will last for
ten years at least, when it can be renewed once at all events. Of course
the end must come. It was not intended that man should live for ever.
And who would wish it?"

"Not I, certainly," said Mrs. Ruyler sententiously. "Well, I must admit
it has been a complete success in your case. That is not saying I
approve of what you have done. You know how we have always regarded such
things. If you had lived your life in New York instead of in
Europe--notoriously loose in such matters--I feel convinced that you
would never have done such a thing--exhausted or not. Moreover, I am a
religious woman and I do not believe in interfering with the will of the
Almighty."

"Then why have a doctor when you are ill? Are not illnesses the act of
God? They certainly are processes of nature."

"I have always believed in letting nature take her course," said Mrs.
Ruyler firmly. "But of course when one is ill, that is another
matter----"

"Is it?" Madame Zattiany's eye showed a militant spark. "Or is it
merely that you are so accustomed to the convention of calling in a
doctor that you have never wasted thought on the subject? But is not
medicine a science? When you are ill you invoke the aid of science in
the old way precisely as I did in the new one. The time will come when
this treatment I have undergone will be so much a matter of course that
it will cause no more discussion than going under the knife for
cancer--or for far less serious ailments. I understand that you, Polly,
had an operation two years ago for gastric ulcer, an operation called by
the very long and very unfamiliar name, gastroenterostomy. Did you
feel--for I assume that you agree with Isabel in most things--that you
were flying in the face of the Almighty? Or were you only too glad to
take advantage of the progress of science?"

Mrs. Vane merely grunted. Mrs. Ruyler exclaimed crossly, "Oh, no one
ever could argue with you, Mary Ogden. The truth is," she added, in a
sudden burst of enlightenment that astonished herself, "I don't suppose
any of us would mind if you didn't look younger than our daughters. That
sticks in our craw. Why not admit it?"

Mrs. Oglethorpe chuckled. She and Isabel Ruyler snapped at each other
like two belligerent old cats every time they crossed each other's path,
but, with the exception of Mary Ogden, whom she loved, she liked her
better than any of her old friends.

But once more