“You’ll teach me all I’ll ever know about love.”
“Ah!”
“The past is a blank as far as I am concerned. I can wipe anything off the slate.”
“I don’t know—I don’t know— Charming as you are now, I found you enchanting fifteen years ago, and quite as fascinating in another way when we met again. I don’t think I want the other Julias obliterated.”
“But you can stand this one for a week?”
“I’ll ask for nothing better—for a week. But—somehow—you look almost too young to know what love is. You look like a child pretending.”
“I am and I’m not. I can’t annihilate the years, but I can send them to the rear, and put youth, and all that means when it has its rights, in front—and keep it there as long as I choose.”
Tay stirred uneasily. “I’ve seen women of thirty—forty—in love before this, and they always look rejuvenated—but—well, I wish you had never lived those years in the Orient. You’ve got yourself too well in hand. It’s uncanny.”
“Oh, if you prefer me as the general of a Militant army,” and she drew herself up, her features arranged themselves in an expression of stern composure, her eyes were steady and exalted, and her mouth subtly older.
“Drop it!” said Tay, savagely. “Drop it! That at least you are to cut out for good and all. I’m quite content with you as you are—” Julia’s face was relaxed and smiling once more. “It is enough to know your possibilities. Remain as you are until you have developed under my tuition; and forget your Oriental learning also.”