‘My dear, I think you are young still,’ said I.
‘Oh dear, no; that is quite out of the question. When a woman is over thirty, she ought to give up all such ideas,’ said Lady Isabella, with an amount of explanatoriness which I did not understand; and she began to fold hems in her handkerchief in a nervous way. ‘When a woman is thirty, she may just as well be fifty at once for any difference it makes.’
‘I don’t think even fifty is anything so very dreadful,’ said I. ‘One’s ideas change as one gets older; but twenty years make a wonderful difference, whatever you may think.’
‘Perhaps, for some things,’ she said hastily. ‘And you must know, Mrs. Mulgrave, in that fabulous time when I was young other marvels existed. They always do in the fabulous period in all histories; and there was once somebody who was—or at least he said he was—in love with me. There, the murder is out,’ she said, pushing her chair a little further back into the dark corner; and, to my amazement, her voice was full of agitation, as if she had been telling me the secret of her life.
‘My dear Lady Isabella,’ I said, ‘do you really expect me to be surprised at that?’
‘Well, no, perhaps not,’ she said, with another laugh. ‘Not at the simple fact. They say every woman has such a thing happen to her some time in her life. Do you think that is true?’
‘The people in the newspapers say it can’t be true,’ said I, ‘now-a-days: though I don’t think I ever knew a woman who had not——’
‘Mrs. Spen will be back directly,’ cried Lady Isabella, hastily, ‘and I don’t want her to know. I need not tell you that it all came to nothing, for you can see that; but, Mrs. Mulgrave, now comes the funny part of it. His regiment is coming to the barracks, and he will be within five miles of us. Is it not odd?’
‘I don’t think it is at all odd,’ said I. ‘I dare say it is just in the natural order. If it will be painful to you to meet him, Lady Isabella——’
‘That is the funniest of all,’ she said. ‘It will not be in the least painful to me to meet him. On the contrary, I want to meet him. It is very droll, but I do. I should so like to see what he looks like now, and if his temper is improved, and a hundred things. Besides, his sister used to be a great friend of mine; and when we broke it off I lost Augusta too. I want so much to know about her. Indeed, that is my chief reason,’ she went on faltering, ‘for wishing to meet him.’ The words were scarcely spoken when she burst into a little peal of laughter. ‘What a stupid I am,’ she cried, ‘trying to take you in. No, Mrs. Mulgrave, let me be honest; it is not for Augusta I want to see him. I should so like just to make sure—you know—if I was a very great fool, or if he was worth thinking of after all. Now,’ with a little sigh, ‘when one is perfectly dispassionate—and cool——’