“Do you think it is?” asked Lady Cardington. “But how can you know anything about it, at your age, and with your appearance?”
“I suppose we all have our different opinions as to what men are and what men want,” Lady Holme said, more thoughtfully than usual.
“Men! Men!” Lady Cardington exclaimed, with a touch of irritation unusual in her. “Why should we women do, and be, everything for men?”
“I don’t know, but we do and we are. There are some men, though, who think it isn’t a question of looks, or think they think so.”
“Who?” said Lady Cardington, quickly.
“Oh, there are some,” answered Lady Holme, evasively, “who believe in mental charm more than in physical charm, or say they do. And mental charm doesn’t age so obviously as physical—as the body does, I suppose. Perhaps we ought to pin our faith to it. What do you think of Miss Schley?”
Lady Cardington glanced at her with a kind of depressed curiosity.
“She pins her faith to the other thing,” she said.
“Yes.”
“She’s pretty. Do you know she reminds me faintly of you.”