“Caroline, I was fifty a few days ago.”
As Lady Sellingworth said this she observed her friend closely to see if she looked surprised. Miss Briggs did not look surprised. And she only said:
“Were you? Well, I shall be fifty-eight in a couple of months.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Perhaps that’s because I haven’t looked young for the last thirty years.”
“I hate being fifty. The difficulty with me is that my—my nature and my temperament don’t match with my age. And that worries me. What is one to do?”
“Do you want me to advise you about something?”
“I think I do. But it’s so difficult to explain. Perhaps there is a time to give up. Perhaps I have reached it. But if I do give up, what am I to do? How am I to live? I might marry again.”
“Why not?”
“It would have to be an elderly man, wouldn’t it?”