"Please--never mind! So Lady Wrackley thinks that Lady Sellingworth
considered the loss of her jewels such a fitting punishment for her many
lapses from a strict moral code that she never tried to get them back?"

"Apparently. She said that Addie--she called her Addie then--that Addie
bowed her head."

"Not beneath the rod! Don't tell me she used the word rod!"

"But she did!"

"Priceless!"

"Wasn't it? But women are like that when they belong to the 'old guard.'
Do you think she can be right?"

"If it is so, Lady Sellingworth must be a very unusual sort of woman."

"She is--now. For she really did give up all in a moment. And she has
never repented of what she did, as far as anyone knows. I think--"

She paused, looking thoughtful at the mirror.

"Yes?" said Craven gently.

"I think it's rather fine to plunge into old age like that. You go on
being young and beautiful till everyone marvels, and then one day--or
night, perhaps--you look in the glass and you see the wrinkles as they
are--"