Rose bit her lips, then the colour flamed into her face. "Yes," she
said, to break an awkward pause, "I'm forty. Old Rose," she added, with
a forced smile.

"Nonsense," said Allison quickly. "How can a rose be old?"

"Or," continued the Colonel, with an air of old-world gallantry, "how
can earth itself be any older, having borne so fair a rose upon its
breast for forty years?"

"Thank you both," responded Rose, her high colour receding. "Shall we
play again?"

While they were turning over the music Madame grappled with a temptation
to rebuke Isabel then and there. "Not fit for a parlour yet," she
thought. "Ought to be in the nursery on a bread and milk diet and put to
bed at six."

For her part, Isabel dimly discerned that she had said something
awkward, and felt vaguely uncomfortable. She was sorry if she had made a
social mistake and determined to apologise afterward, though she
disliked apologies.

Allison was playing again, differently, yet in the same way. Through the
violin sounded the same high call to Rose. Life assumed a new breadth
and value, as from a newly discovered dimension. She had been in it, yet
not of it, until now. She was merged insensibly with something vast and
universal, finite yet infinite, unknown and undreamed-of an hour ago.