“No paradox at all. Whom the gods love never grow old,” Etheredge explained himself. “They never come to suffer as do you from jaded appetites.”
“You may be right,” his grace admitted gloomily. “Prescribe me a tonic.”
“That is what I was doing: Sylvia Farquharson, at the Duke’s House.”
“Bah! A play actress! A painted doll on wires! Twenty years ago your prescription might have served.”
“You admit that you grow old. Superfluous admission! But this, let me perish, is no painted doll. This is an incarnation of beauty and talent.”
“So I’ve heard of others that had neither.”
“And let me add that she is virtuous.”
Buckingham stared at him, opening his lazy eyes. “What may that be?” he asked.
“The chief drug in my prescription.”
“But does it exist, or is your callowness deeper than I thought?” quoth Buckingham.