She had charming hands. One of them lay on the little table with a beam of the sun on it.
"Perhaps you haven't great desires? Perhaps you don't want many things?"
"I suppose I've been like most women in that respect. But I shall be fifty almost directly."
"How frightful!" was Charmian's mental comment.
"No, it isn't."
"Isn't what?" said Charmian, startled.
"It isn't at all awful to be fifty, or any other age, if you accept it quietly as inevitable. But everything one kicks against hurts one, of course. I expect to pass a very pleasant day on my fiftieth birthday."
Charmian put her chin in her hand.
"How did you know what I thought?"
"A girl of your age would be almost certain to think something of that kind."