Paris! All the rest of that day Lady Sellingworth thought about Paris! Already it stood for a great deal in her life. Was it perhaps going to stand for much more? In Paris long ago—she wished it were not so long ago—she had tasted a curious freedom, had given herself to her wildness, had enlarged her boundaries. And now Paris called her again, called her through the voice of this man whom she did not yet know.
Deliberately that day he had summoned her to Paris. She had no doubt about that. And if she went? He must have some quite definite intention connected with his wish for her to go. It could only be a romantic intention.
And yet to-morrow she would be fifty!
He was quite young. He could not be more than five-and-twenty.
For a moment her imp spoke loudly in her ear. He told her that by this time she must have learnt her lesson, that it was useless to pretend that she had not, that Rupert Louth’s marriage had taught her all that she needed to know, and that now she must realize that the time for adventures, for romance, for the secret indulgence of the passions, was in her case irrevocably over. “Fifty! Fifty! Fifty!” he knelled in her ears. And there were obscure voices within her which backed him up, faintly, as if half afraid, agreeing with him.
She listened. She could not help listening, though she hated it. And for a moment she was almost inclined to submit to the irony of the imp, to trample upon her desire, and to grasp hands once and for all with her self-respect.
The imp said to her: “If you go to Paris you will be making a fool of yourself. That man doesn’t really want you to go. He is only a mischievous boy amusing himself at your expense. Perhaps he has made a bet with that friend of his that you will cross on the same day that he does. You are far too old for adventures. Look in the glass and see yourself as you really are. Remember your folly with Rupert Louth, and this time try to be wise.”
But something else in her, the persistent vanity, perhaps, of a once very beautiful woman, told her that her attraction was not dead, and that if she obeyed her imp she would simply be throwing away the chance of a great joy. Once again her thoughts went to marriage. Once again she dreamed of a young man falling romantically in love with her, and of taking him into her life, and of making his life wonderful by her influence and her connexions.
Once again she was driven by her wildness.
The end of it was that she summoned her maid and told her that they were going over to Paris for a few days on the following Thursday. The maid was not surprised. She supposed that my lady wanted some new gowns. She asked, and was told, what to pack.