"But are there not some mild pleasures left in the years that bring the philosophic mind?" asked Claude.
"Does that mean when one is eighty? At eighty one might easily be philosophic. Everything would be over and done with. One would be like old Lord Tyrawly, who said he was dead, though people did not know it."
"Some of the most delightful people I have known were old, and even very old," said Claude, "but they didn't mind. That's the secret of eternal youth, my dear Susie—not to mind: to wear the best wig you can buy, and not to pretend it is your own hair: to wear pretty clothes, especially suited to your years, sumptuous velvet and more sumptuous fur, like a portrait of an old lady by Velasquez: never to brag of your age, but never to be ashamed of it. The last phase may be the best phase, if one has the philosophic mind."
"Oh, you," exclaimed Susan scornfully, "you are like Chesterfield. You will have your good manners till your last death-bed visitor has been given a chair. A fine manner is the only thing that time can't touch."
Vera saw her aunt looking bored, and smiled the signal for moving.
"Half a cigarette, and I shall follow," said Claude, as he opened the door for the trio, "unless I am distinctly forbidden."
"Why should we forbid you? You are an artist, and you know more about frocks and hats than we do, after years of laborious study," said Lady Susan, and then, with her arm through Vera's as they went slowly up the broad staircase, with steps so shallow that people accustomed to small houses were in danger of falling over them, "Isn't he incomparable?" she exclaimed. "There never was such a delightful failure."
"Poor Claude," sighed Lady Okehampton. "I suppose it is only the men who fail in everything who have time to be agreeable. If a young man has a great ambition, and is thinking of his career, he is generally a bear. Claude has wasted all his chances in life, and can afford to waste his time."
"It was a pity he left the Army," said Susan. "He looked lovely in his uniform. I remember him as he flashed past me in a hansom, one summer morning after a levée, a vision of beauty."
"It was a pity he got himself entrapped by a bad woman," said Lady Okehampton with a sigh.