"I doubt that," said Edith loudly.
"This is German scepticism then. Jack is much more like a boy than you are like a girl."
"I never was like a girl," said Edith. "Ask Bertie, ask anybody. I was always mature and feverish. Dodo was always calculating, and her calculations were interrupted by impulse. Jack was always the devout lover. The troubadour on my medal is extremely like him."
Jack passed his hand over his forehead.
"What are we talking about?" he said.
"Getting old, darling," said Dodo.
"So we are. But the fact is, you know, that we're getting old all the time, but we don't notice it till some shock comes. That crystallises things. What is fluid in you takes shape."
Dodo got up.
"So we've got to wait for a shock," she said. "Is that all you can suggest? Anyhow, I shall hold your hand if a shock comes. What sort of a shock would be good for me, do you think? I know what would be good for Edith, and that would be that she suddenly found that she couldn't help writing music that was practically indistinguishable from the Messiah."
"And that," said Edith, "is blasphemy."