December Love Part 5

"She certainly was the least guarded of the 'old guard.' But she said she loved Lady Sellingworth now, because she was so changed."

"Physically, I suppose."

"She didn't say that. She said morally."

"That wasn't stupid of her."

"Just what I thought. She said a moral revolution had taken place in Lady Sellingworth after the jewels were stolen."

"That sounds almost too tumultuous to be comfortable."

"Like 'A Tale of Two Cities' happening in one's interior."

"And what did she attribute such a phenomenon to?"

"Well, she took almost a clerical view of the matter."

"How very unexpected!"

"She said she believed that Adela--she called her Adela--that Adela took the loss of her jewels as a punishment for her sins."

"Do you mean to say she used the word sins?"

"No; she said 'many lapses.' But that's what she meant."

"Lapses from what?"

"She didn't exactly say. But I'm afraid she meant from a strict moral code."

"Oh, Lord!" said Craven, thinking of Lady Wrackley's smile.

"Why do you say that?"

"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 gla.s.s and you see the wrinkles as they are--"

"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 pa.s.s 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.

"Why not?"

"I have my little private reasons," she murmured.

At that moment Craven was conscious of a silly desire to take her in his arms, bundle of vanities though he knew her to be. He hated himself for being so ordinary. But there it was!

He looked at her eyebrows. They were dark and beautifully shaped and made an almost unnerving contrast with her corn-coloured hair.

"I know what you are thinking," she said.

"Impossible!"

"You are thinking that I darken them. But I don't."

And then Craven gave up and became frankly foolish.