"Yes, I suppose so."
Charmian sighed, and then suddenly felt rather angry, and lifted her chin.
"But surely I need not be exactly like every other girl of twenty-one!" she exclaimed, with much more vivacity.
"You aren't. No girl is. But you all think it must be dreadful to be a moneyless spinster of fifty. I believe, for my part, that there's many a vieille fille who is not particularly sorry for herself or for the man who didn't want to marry her."
Miss Fleet was smiling.
"But I'm not a pessimist as regards marriage," she added. "And I think men are quite as good as women, and quite as bad."
"How calm you are!"
"Why not?"
"I could never be like that."
"Perhaps when you are fifty."