"More easily than you did? Oh, nobody does that; and, to be quite honest, I've got used to it and don't mind. People talk of our changing every seven years, but they make me feel as if I changed every seven minutes. What will you have, at any rate, and how can I help it? It's the grind of life, the wear and tear of time and misfortune. And, you know, I'm ninety-three."
"How young you must feel," I answered, "to care to talk of your age! I envy you, for nothing would induce me to let you know mine. You look, you see, just twenty-five."
It evidently too, what I said, gave her pleasure—a pleasure that she caught and held. "Well, you can't say I dress it."
"No, you dress, I make out, ninety-three. If you would only dress twenty-five you'd look fifteen."
"Fifteen in a schoolroom charade!" She laughed at this happily enough. "Your compliment to my taste is odd. I know, at all events," she went on, "what's the difference in Mr. Long."
"Be so good then, for my relief, as to name it."
"Well, a very clever woman has for some time past——"
"Taken"—this beginning was of course enough—"a particular interest in him? Do you mean Lady John?" I inquired; and, as she evidently did, I rather demurred. "Do you call Lady John a very clever woman?"
"Surely. That's why I kindly arranged that, as she was to take, I happened to learn, the next train, Guy should come with her."
"You arranged it?" I wondered. "She's not so clever as you then."