“And about twelve,” he added, “or twelve-and-a-half.”
“I?”
“Yes, you. I am not speaking of myself, though I believe I am calm also.”
“I am a woman—practically.”
“Practically?”
“Yes; isn’t that the word people always put in when they mean ‘that’s a lie’?”
“You mean you aren’t a woman! This afternoon I must agree with you.”
“It’s the sea! But just now, when you were coming, I was looking at myself in the glass and saying, ‘You’re a woman’—solemnly, you know, as if it was a dreadful truth.”
Artois had sat down on a sofa. He leaned back now with his hands behind his head. He still looked at Vere, and, as he did so, he heard the faint whisper of the sea.
“Child of nature,” he said—“call yourself that. It covers any age, and it’s blessedly true.”