"It horrified me so that for several years I hardly could go on with it, and I have always refused to mix the sexes in my house down there, but, of course, I could not help hearing things--seeing things--and after a while I did get hardened--and ceased to be revolted. I learned to look upon all that sort of thing as a matter of course. But it was too late then. I had lost what little looks I had ever possessed. I grew to look like an old maid long before I was thirty. Why is nature so cruel, Mary?" "I fancy a good many American women develop very slowly sexually. You were merely one of them. I wonder you had the climacteric so early. But nature is very fond of taking her little revenges. You defied her and she smote you." "Oh, yes, she smote me! But I never fully realized it until you came." "I hardly follow you." "Oh, don't you see? You have shown us that women can begin life over again, undo their awful mistakes. And yet I don't dare--don't dare----" "Why not, pray? Better come with me to Vienna if you haven't the courage to face the music here." "Oh, I haven't the courage. I couldn't carry things off with such a high hand as you do. You were always high and mighty, they say, and have done as you pleased all your life. You don't care a pin whether we approve of what you've done or not. It's the way you're made. But I--couldn't stand it. The admission of vanity, of--of--after the life I've led. The young women would say, in their nasty slang, that I was probably man-crazy." "And aren't you?" asked Mary coolly. "Isn't that just what is the matter? The sex-imagination often outlives the withering of the sex-glands. Come now, admit it. Forget that you are a pastel-tinted remnant of the old order and call a spade a spade." "There's something terrifying about you, Mary." Miss Trevor had flushed a dark purple, but she had very honest eyes, and they did not falter. "But I respect you more than any woman I have ever known. And although you are not very sympathetic you are the only person on earth to whom I could even mention such a subject." "Well, go ahead," said Mary resignedly. "If you want my advice, take your courage in your hands and do it. However people may carp, there is nothing they so much admire as courage." "Yes, but they make you suffer tortures just because they do admire it--or to keep themselves from admitting it." "True enough. But after all, they don't matter. Life would be so much simpler if we'd all make up our minds that what other people think about us does not signify in the least. It's only permitting it to signify that permits it to exist." "That's all very well for you, but it's really a question of temperament. Do you think I'd dare come back here looking like a girl again--and I suppose I should. I'm sixteen years younger than you. . . . You must know how many of the women hate you." "That sort of hate may be very stimulating, my dear Agnes," said Madame Zattiany drily.