"But——Please! There must be no more of it."
"What?" He threw up his head. "We must have it out, you know. We are going to."
"No, no——"
"Yes, I say. Yes. As I was saying——How old should I have to be before you'd want to marry me?"
Mrs. Cartwright gave a little hopeless sort of laugh to herself as she threw upon him that quick glance that seemed to be not looking.
He put on his coat (at her orders), his flyer's coat with the wide collar that made his head seem even smaller and the oval of his face more perfect as it rested against the fur. That young, young face topping the athlete's body that towered above her own, that spring and lilt of his walk had never before made such appeal to the sense of physical beauty that was in her.
Claudia Cartwright thought that in this faculty she brought up the arrears of the countless members of her own sex who would seem to be entirely without it. A woman had once said to her, "I don't find any man much under forty-five worth considering. Youth doesn't appeal to me. I never can see the attraction!" and to Mrs. Cartwright this was exactly as though her friend had boasted, "I am colour-blind! I can't tell one tune from another, either! Also, I never care for flowers."
The boy at her side was beautiful, in the diffused and shifting light, as a young marble Hermes dressed in the trappings of today and come to life to court her. The next twenty years might teach him many, many things—but they must strip from him one by one the charms of which he was all unconscious, as he demanded of her how old he must be to please her.
She should stop him there, she knew. Since he had not seen that it had been the end, she should put the definite end to it; go in.
She should not dally or coquet with this thing.