But once more Mrs. Vane drew herself up (figuratively). "Speak for yourself. It may be that I am too old to accept new ideas, but this one certainly seems to me downright immoral and indecent. This is not intended to reflect on you personally, Mary, and of course you were more or less demoralized by your close contact with the war. I mean the idea—the thing—itself. We may call in doctors and surgeons when we are in bodily discomfort, and be thankful that they are more advanced than in our mothers' time, when people died of appendicitis every day in the week and called it inflammation of the bowels. But no one can tell me that rejuvenation is not against the laws of nature. What are you going to do with this new youth—I never saw any one look less indifferent to life!—make fools of men again—of our sons?"
"Who can tell?" asked Mary maliciously. "Could anything be more amusing than to come back to New York after thirty-four years and be a belle again, with the sons and grandsons of my old friends proposing to me?"
"Do you really mean that?" Mrs. Vane almost rose. She recalled that her youngest son had met Madame Zattiany in Mrs. Oglethorpe's box on Monday night and had been mooning about the house ever since. "If I thought that——"
"Well, what would you do, Polly?" Mary laughed outright. "Your son—Harry is his name, is it not?—is remarkably good-looking and very charming. After all, where could you find a safer and more understanding wife for him than a woman who has had not only the opportunity to know the world and men like the primer, but looks—is—so young that he is bound to forget it and be led like a lamb? Girls, those uncharted seas, are always a risk——"
"Stop tormenting Polly," exclaimed Mrs. Oglethorpe. "Mary has no intention of marrying any one. She's only waiting for her estate to be settled in order to return to Europe and devote herself to certain plans of reconstruction——"
"Is that true?"
"Quite true," said Madame Zattiany, smiling. "Don't worry, Polly. If I marry it will be some one you are not interested in too personally, and it is doubtful if I ever marry at all. There's a tremendous work to be done in Europe, and so far as lies in my power I shall do my share. If I marry it will be some one who can help me. I can assure you I long since ceased to be susceptible, particularly to young men. Remember that while my brain has been rejuvenated with the rest of my physical structure, my mind is as old as it was before the treatment." She gave a slight unnoticed shiver. "My memory, that for years before the war was dull and inactive, is now as vigorous as ever."
Several of the women recalled those old stories of Countess Zattiany's youth, and looked at her sharply. There was a general atmosphere of uneasiness in the large respectable room. But whether or not they gave her the benefit of the doubt, they had always given her due credit for neither being found out nor embarrassing her virtuous friends with confidences.
Mrs. Tracy was the first to break the silence. "But you will come to all of us as long as you do stay, will you not? I do so want to give you a dinner next week."
"Yes, yes, indeed." The chorus was eager, and sincere enough. After all, nothing could alter the fact that she was one of them.