‘That consideration has also occurred to me,’ I said candidly, ‘though I have perhaps been even more struck by its converse.’
‘You had no earthly business to be her mother,’ said my friend, with irritation.
I shrugged my shoulders—what would you have done?—and opened ‘La Duchesse Bleue’.
Chapter 1.III
Mrs. Morgan, wife of a judge of the High Court of Bombay, and I sat amidships on the cool side in the Suez Canal. She was outlining ‘Soiled Linen’ in chain-stitch on a green canvas bag; I was admiring the Egyptian sands. ‘How charming,’ said I, ‘is this solitary desert in the endless oasis we are compelled to cross!’
‘Oasis in the desert, you mean,’ said Mrs. Morgan; ‘I haven’t noticed any, but I happened to look up this morning as I was putting on my stockings, and I saw through my port-hole the most lovely mirage.’
I had been at school with Mrs. Morgan more than twenty years agone, but she had come to the special enjoyment of the dignities of life while I still liked doing things. Mrs. Morgan was the kind of person to make one realize how distressing a medium is middle age. Contemplating her precipitous lap, to which conventional attitudes were certainly more becoming, I crossed my own knees with energy, and once more resolved to be young until I was old.
‘How perfectly delightful for you to be taking Cecily out!’ said Mrs. Morgan placidly.
‘Isn’t it?’ I responded, watching the gliding sands.