“I—I—marry! I have never dreamt of such a thing.”
“Why not, pray? You are comparatively young. A man is always young, until he is really going downhill. A man is young at fifty. Now, look at a woman at fifty!” and she paused expressively.
He turned his eyes upon her. Little did he suppose that he was contemplating a woman of fifty—a woman who was extravagant, luxurious, dreadfully in debt, almost at the end of her resources and her friends’ forbearance, and who was resolved upon marrying him whom she had once called “that vulgar horror, the little Australian squatter.”
He looked at her with a rather shame-faced air and a grin. Alas! flattery was hurrying him to destruction. She was an extremely handsome woman, of the Juno type—erect, stately, with bright, dark eyes, dark hair, a short straight nose, and beautiful teeth (some were her own). She was dressed in a pale yellow muslin, with white ribbons, and wore a most fascinating picture-hat and veil; her gloves, shoes, and sunshade were of the choicest, and it was not improbable that, in the coming by-and-by, Mr. West would have the pleasure of paying for this charming toilette.
“A woman of fifty,” she pursued, “is an old hag; her day has gone by, her hour of retreat has sounded. She is grey, stout—ten to one, unwieldy—and dowdy. Now, a man of fifty shoots, hunts, dances as he did when he was twenty-five—in fact, as far as dancing goes, he is thrice as keen as the ordinary ball-room boy, who simply won’t dance, and is the despair of hostesses!”
“I’ve never thought of marrying,” he repeated. “Never!”
“No; all your thoughts are for Madeline, I am aware, and the alliance she is to make; but my motto is, ‘Live while you live; live your own individual life, and don’t starve on the scraps of other people’s good things.’”
“Do you think any one would have me, Mrs. Leach?” he asked, as he leant on his elbow and looked up into her glorious eyes.
She was the Honourable Mrs. Leach, well-connected, fashionable, handsome, and—oh, climax!—“smart.” Yes, the idea was an illumination. How well she would look at the head of his table and in the landau!
“Dear Mr. West, how humble you are! I am sure you would—(she meant his money)—make any reasonable woman happy.” She glanced at him timidly, and looked down and played coyly with her châtelaine.