She looked at her plate; there was on it a piece of cheese to which she had thoughtlessly helped herself. Somebody had called it Roquefort—that was all she knew.
“You have as much there, child, as would kill a ploughman; and I suppose you would not have had the sense to leave it.”
“Is it poison?” said Sheila, regarding her plate with horror.
“All cheese is. Paterson, my scales.”
She had Sheila’s plate brought to her, and the proper modicum of cheese cut, weighed and sent back.
“Remember, whatever house you are in, never to have more Roquefort than that.”
“It would be simpler to do without,” said Sheila.
“It would be simple enough to do without a great many things,” said Mrs. Lavender, severely. “But the wisdom of living is to enjoy as many different things as possible, so long as you do so in moderation and preserve your health. You are young—you don’t think of such things. You think, because you have good teeth and a clear complexion, you can eat anything. But that won’t last. A time will come. Do you not know what the great Emperor Marcus Antoninus says?—‘In a little while thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus.’ ”
“Yes,” said Sheila.
She had not enjoyed her luncheon much; she would rather have had a ham sandwich and a glass of spring water on the side of a Highland hill than this varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of physiology; but it was too bad that, having successfully got through it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward. It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the same plight with two emperors.