'Surely that depends on one's mood?'
'Everything in life depends on one's mood. When I am in another mood I shall say to myself that I have ten years left in which I shall be agreeable to myself and other people; that the young girls do not understand men and do not influence them; that a woman is always young so long as she retains her power to please and to be pleased. There are five hundred sophisms with which I can console myself, but just now I am not in a humour to be consoled by them. I am only sensible of what is very frightful to think of—that a woman is allotted threescore and ten years as well as a man, but that he may enjoy himself to the end of them, if only he keep his health; she comes to the close of her pleasures before her life is half lived. With her, the preface is exquisite, the poem is delightful, but the colophon is of such preposterous and odious length and dulness, that it is out of all proportion to the brevity of the romance.'
He smiled. 'I know that it is always hopeless to convince you when you are in a pessimistic humour.'
'Oh yes; into one's character, as into the characters of others, one gets little flashes of real light here and there, now and then; the moments are not agreeable; they are the flashes of a policeman's lanthorn; while they are shining disguise is not possible.'
'What do you see when they flash upon me?'
'Not very much that I would have changed except your sentimentalities.'
'I am grateful.'
She looked at him curiously. 'Did you doubt it?'
He answered, 'Well, no; not precisely. But with such a character as yours one never knows.'
'Is not that the charm of my character?'