“So long,” I went on, pursuing the same train of thought, “as one can sit down readily upon a hearth seat, and especially so long as one can clasp one’s knees upon it, one is not even middle-aged. To clasp one’s knees is really to hug one’s youth.”
“I had such a pretty one in Calcutta,” said the Average Woman. “So cosy it looked. Everybody admired it.”
“But in Calcutta,” I exclaimed with astonishment, “it is always so hot—and there are no fireplaces.”
“Oh, that didn’t matter,” replied she triumphantly, “I draped the mantelpiece. It looked just as well.” And yet there are people who say that the Average Woman has no imagination.
“Talking of age,” she continued, “how old do you suppose Mrs. —— is? Somebody at tiffin yesterday who knew the family declared that she could not be a day under thirty-seven. I should not give her more than thirty-five myself. My husband says thirty-two.”
“About a person’s age,” I said, “what can another person’s husband know?”
“What should you say?” she insisted. I am sorry to have to underline so much, but you know how the average woman talks in italics. It is as if she wished to make up in emphasis—but I will not finish that good-natured sentence.
“Oh,” said I, “you cannot measure Mrs. ——’s age in years! She is as old as Queen Elizabeth and as young as the day before yesterday. Parts of her date from the Restoration and parts from the advent of M. Max Nordau—” At that moment Thalia arrived. “And that is the age of all the world,” I finished.
“We were wondering,” said the Average Woman, “how old Mrs. —— is.”
“You were wondering,” I corrected her.