For it had all come back; the old greedy love of sympathy and admiration, the old worship of strength and youth and hot blood and good looks, the old longing for desire and love, the old almost irritable passion to possess, to dominate, to be first, to submerge another human being in her own personality. After ten years she was in love again, desperately in love. But she was an elderly woman now, so elderly that many people would no doubt think that it was impossible that she should be in love. How little such people knew about human nature! The evening had been almost as wonderful and as exciting to her as it could have been to a girl. When she had come into the hall of the Carlton and had seen Craven through the glass, had seen his tall figure, smooth, dark hair, and animated face glowing with health after the breezes and sunrays of Beaconsfield, she had known a feeling that a girl might have understood and shared. And she was sixty! What was to be done? Craven was certainly fond of her already. Quietly she had triumphed that night. Three women had seen and had quite understood her little triumph. Probably all of them had wondered about it, had been secretly irritated by it. Certainly Beryl had been very much irritated. But in spite of that triumph, Lady Sellingworth felt almost desperately afraid that night when she was alone. For she knew how great the difference was between her feeling for Craven and his feeling for her. And with greater intimacy that difference, she felt sure, must even increase. For she would want from him what he would never want or even dream of wanting, from her. He would be satisfied in their friendship while she would be almost starving. He would never know that cruel longing to touch which marks the difference between what is love and what is friendship. If she now let herself go, took no drastic step, just let life carry her on, she could have a strange and unusual, and, in its way, beautiful friendship, a friendship which to a woman with a different nature from hers might seem perfect. She could have that--and what would it be to her? She longed to lay violent hands on herself; she longed to tear something that was an essential part of her to pieces, to scatter it to a wind, and let the wind whirl it away. She knelt down that night before getting into bed and prayed. And when she did that she thought of Sellingworth and of his teachings and opinions. How he would have laughed at her if he had ever seen her do that! She had not wanted to do it in the years when she had been with him. But now, if his opinions had been well founded, he was only dust and perhaps a few fragments of bone. He could not laugh at her now. And she felt a really desperate need of prayer.