"Nay, to what avail?" she countered, blushed again, added, "Surely ye must be an agent of the devil himself, Master Charles—ye look no older than twenty-five or six."
"In two hundred years we have learned to take rather better care of ourselves," he added gently. "We don't age quite so fast."
"And ye'r women?" The question was blunt.
Justin said, "And our women too. Few of them show much age until they are in their forties—some not even then."
"Methinks I would appreciate ye'r time—if indeed it is ye'r time," she told him. "But come—ye must be hungry."
Her remark made Justin conscious of the headache that was plucking at his temples. He said, "Come to think of it I'm starved."
"Then follow me, Master Charles," she said, moving toward the doorway. There she paused, turned to study him again, added, "But surely ye cannot be forty-one. Ye look such a young man."
"I'll see what I can do," he replied. "Lead on, MacDuff."
He followed her down a long corridor, off which other cubicles opened, similar to that in which he had so recently awakened. And he noted that her walk was light and graceful, that her ridiculous tent of a nightgown swayed as she moved to suggest her figure filled only a fraction of it.
He said, "Why did you starch that ghastly gown, Deborah?"