“It is only the art of my maid,” she said smiling, “which conceals mine. Do not let us talk of the past at all; to think that we lived so long ago is positively appalling!”
He shook his head gently.
“Not so appalling,” he answered, “as the thought of how long we still have to live! One regrets one’s youth as a matter of course, but the prospect of old age is more terrible still! Lucky those men and those women who live and then die. It is that interregnum—the level, monotonous plain of advancing old age, when one takes the waters at Carlsbad and looks askance at the entrées—that is what one has to dread. To watch our own degeneration, the dropping away of our energies, the decline of our taste—why, the tortures of the Inquisition were trifles to it!”
She shuddered a little.
“You paint old age in dreary colours,” she said.
“I paint it as it must seem to men who have kept the kernel of life between their teeth,” he answered carelessly. “To the others—well, one cares little about them. Most men are like cows, they are contented so long as they are fed. To that class I daresay old age may seem something of a rest. But neither you nor I are akin to them.”
“You talk as you always talked,” she said. “Mr. Sabin is very like——”
He stopped her.
“Mr. Sabin, if you please,” he exclaimed. “I am particularly anxious to preserve my incognito just now. Ever since we met yesterday I have been regretting that I did not mention it to you—I do not wish it to be known that I am in England.”