“Dear me! You don’t look a puritan.”
I laughed. The expression as applied to myself sounded quite comic.
“I am afraid my virtue has its origin in vanity. I confine myself to champagne, and that only occasionally.”
“You are quite right. It is dreadful the objects young men make of themselves with drink—and women, too, when they cease to attract.”
“Do they ever realise when that time has come?”
“Yes, most women are philosophical enough for that.”
“Women with charm need never cease to attract.”
“That is very true, but you are young to have found it out. It is usually a discovery of the middle-aged.”
“Age is not altogether a question of years.”
I found Lady Pebworth a mental tonic. She made me talk as I had never talked before, indeed, as I had never known myself capable of talking.