"I'd never wish for that," thought Claudia Cartwright, "but what about Diane de Poictiers?"
She mused a moment upon that story, upon those sweetest of love-letters written by a young and ardent king to "Madame ma Mie." They bore the dates of many years, those letters signed by the cypher which was the "Lac d'Amour" for Henri and his Diane—the first Frenchwoman, Mrs. Cartwright reminded herself, to go in for the exotic practice of the cold tub. And she was forty—forty when that affair was in blossom! Her statue as Diana, the bather, Mrs. Cartwright had seen in pictures, and the tall slim Englishwoman's vanity had recognized a familiar pose.
"I am like her," she thought now.
But in the middle of her thought she pulled herself together, tossing aside the towel as she laughed without amusement.
What was the use of it; what? Why dwell on the outstanding Exceptions, of whom the very fame went to prove the relentless rule that a waning woman and a boy may not find lasting happiness together? These stories of Cleopatra, Ninon, and Diane were lamentably beside the mark. But the stories of matrons of today who had married their sons' contemporaries hadn't drifted across the writer's experience.
Stories of mistakes recognized almost at once, but too late. Of passion that died quickly down on the one side, leaving on the other side an unrequited and consuming flame. Of sad-faced, elderly, neglected wives at home. Of desperate efforts to retain fading attractions; of grotesque make-up, of golden hair and gaiety, both false. Of the interests of separated generations, their claims, their mental outlook, always at war! Of youth, fettered and fuming, straining towards his kind....
At best they were pathetic, these stories.
At worst they were ugly enough. They justified the contempt in the term "Baby-snatcher!" They established the principle, "A middle-aged woman who will marry a young boy is no sportswoman."
Now Mrs. Cartwright had always hoped that, with all her faults, she could never be accused of being unsportsmanlike. Still confident of this, she ran downstairs to dinner.
Her lateness only postponed by a little the hour of reckoning.