"Does any woman ever do that?"

"_She_ must have! And you say to yourself, '_C'est fini!_' and you throw
up the sponge. No more struggles for you! From one day to another you
become an old woman. I think I shall do as Lady Sellingworth has done."

"When?"

"When I'm--perhaps at fifty, yes, at fifty. No man really cares for a
woman, as a woman wants him to care, after fifty."

"I wonder," said Craven.

She sent him a sharp, questioning glance.

"Did you ever wonder before you went to Berkeley Square?"

"Perhaps not."

A slight shadow seemed to pass over Miss Van Tuyn's face.

"I believe there was a famous French actress who was loved after she was
seventy," said Craven.

"Then the man must have been a freak."

"Lots of us are freaks."

"I don't think you are," she said provocatively.