Eleanor regarded Marcia with a still puzzled smile. ‘You talk about Mr. Sybert as if he were a contemporary of your grandfather. How old is he, may I ask?’
‘I don’t know. He’s nearly as old as Uncle Howard. Thirty-five or thirty-six, I should say.’
‘A man isn’t worth talking to under thirty-five.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ Margaret objected. ‘I never heard any one in my life talk better than Paul, and he’s exactly twenty-five.’
‘Paul talks words; he doesn’t talk ideas,’ said her sister.
There was a pause, in which Eleanor leaned forward to examine some bits of green and blue iridescent glass lying in a little tray on the table. ‘What are these?’ she inquired.
‘Pieces of perfume-bottles that the grave-digger in Palestrina found in an old Etruscan tomb. There were some bronze mirrors, and the most wonderful gold necklace—I wanted it dreadfully, but he didn’t dare sell it; it’s gone to a museum in Rome. Aren’t these pieces of glass lovely, though? I am going to have them set in gold and made into pins.’
‘Here’s a little bottle that’s scarcely broken.’ Eleanor held it up before the candle and let the light play upon its surface. ‘Who do you suppose owned it before you, Marcia?’
‘Some girl who turned to dust centuries ago.’
‘And her necklaces and mirrors and perfume-bottles still exist. What a commentary!’