"Since the said Smolny inconsiderately persists in failing to collapse,
as per the daily predictions of the hopeful."

"Just so."

"But aren't you forgetting you yourself have given that Smolny lot the
same and quite as much reason for holding your name anathema?"

"Ah!" Duchemin growled--"as for me, I can take care of myself, thank
you. My trouble is, I want somebody else to take care of. I had a
daughter once, for a few weeks, long enough to make me strangely fond
of the responsibilities of a father; and then Karslake took her away,
leaving me nothing to do with my life but twiddle futile thumbs and
contemplate the approach of middle age." "Middle age? Why flatter
yourself? With a daughter married, too!"

"Sonia's only eighteen..."

"She was born when you were twenty. That makes you nearly forty, and
that's next door to second childhood, Man!" the Englishman declared
solemnly--"you're superannuated."

"I know; and so long as I feel my years, even you can abuse me with
impunity."

But Wertheimer would not hear him. "Odd," he mused, "I never thought of
it before, that you were growing old. And I've been wondering, too,
what it was that has been making you so precious slow and cautious and
cranky of late. You're just doddering--and I thought you were simply
tired out and needed a holiday."