Lady Camper threw back her head. ‘Then you are not yet awake, or you practice the art of sleeping with open eyes! Now listen to me. I rouge, I have told you. I like colour, and I do not like to see wrinkles or have them seen. Therefore I rouge. I do not expect to deceive the world so flagrantly as to my age, and you I would not deceive for a moment. I am seventy.’
The effect of this noble frankness on the General, was to raise him from his chair in a sitting posture as if he had been blown up.
Her countenance was inexorably imperturbable under his alternate blinking and gazing that drew her close and shot her distant, like a mysterious toy.
‘But,’ said she, ‘I am an artist; I dislike the look of extreme age, so I conceal it as well as I can. You are very kind to fall in with the deception: an innocent and, I think, a proper one, before the world, though not to the gentleman who does me the honour to propose to me for my hand. You desire to settle our business first. You esteem me; I suppose you mean as much as young people mean when they say they love. Do you? Let us come to an understanding.’
‘I can,’ the melancholy General gasped, ‘I say I can—I cannot—I cannot credit your ladyship’s...’
‘You are at liberty to call me Angela.’
‘Ange...’ he tried it, and in shame relapsed. ‘Madam, yes. Thanks.’
‘Ah,’ cried Lady Camper, ‘do not use these vulgar contractions of decent speech in my presence. I abhor the word “thanks.” It is fit for fribbles.’
‘Dear me, I have used it all my life,’ groaned the General.
‘Then, for the remainder, be it understood that you renounce it. To continue, my age is...’