ce. She has regained the
appearance--and--_possibly_--the real feeling of youth, with all its
capacity for enthusiasm and unworn emotions--it seems rather ludicrous,
but still it may be; certainly the interior should be in some degree a
match for that marvellously restored face and body--but the whole thing
is made farcical by the fact that she never can have children. And
what else does youth in women really mean?"

"Experience has taught me that it means quite a number of other things.
And painting portraits is not fulfilling the first and highest duty of
womanhood, dear Anne."

Miss Goodrich flushed, but accepted his score calmly. "Oh, I shall
marry, of course. But then, you see, I am young--really young."

"What are you two quarrelling about?" broke in Miss Lawrence's husky
voice. She had smoked steadily since taking her seat at the table, not
so much because she had an irresistible passion for tobacco as because
it destroyed her appetite and preserved her figure. "I haven't seen
Anne blush like that since she got back from France."

"I was just telling her how beautiful she looked tonight." And angry
as he was, it amused him to hear Anne's little gasp of pleasure.

"Yes, doesn't she?" Miss Lawrence blew a ring and smiled sweetly.
"I've always been jealous of Anne. She's such a beautiful height. I'm
so glad the giraffes of the last generation seem to have died out. Too
bad, when Madame Zattiany rejuvenated herself, she didn't slice off a
few inches. She dwarfs even men of your height, although, of course,
you are really taller. But then tall women----" She shrugged her
shoulders, her crisp voice softened and she went on as if thinking
aloud. "Do you know . . . to me she does not look young at all. I
have a fancy she's hypnotized every one but myself. I seem to see an
old woman with a colossal will. . . . But I'd like to know the name of
that whitewash she uses. It may come in handy some day. Not for
another ten years, though. Oh, Lee! it's good to be really young and
not have to be flattened out on a table under broiling X-Rays and have
your poor old feminine department cranked up. . . . I wonder just how
adventurous men are?"'

But Clavering, although seething, merely smiled. He knew himself to be
like the man who has had a virulent attack of small-pox and is immune
for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he would cheerfully have
twisted her neck. She was holding that slim lily-like t