“But what is the matter with you?” asked Lady Sunningdale. “You will ask me next if I am quite sure he hasn’t got false teeth. Dearest Stella, do drop this exacting, questioning attitude once and for all. I know almost everybody has an occasional attack of it, but I am sure you will pardon me, it is just that which makes people odious. It turns them sour. For Heaven’s sake, don’t turn sour. Suez Canal is in the grate again. Oh, naughty! Thank you, dearest. Yes, sour. Take things on broad, indulgent lines. He loves you. That, on the whole, you believe to be a true statement of the case. Well, then, surely that is good enough. Don’t say, ‘Does his love measure six feet in height, or is it only five foot eleven and three quarters.’ In fact, open the windows.” Stella took this very attentively and very gravely. “Dear Lady Sunningdale,” she said, “I am very grateful. I think you have done me good. I had a little attack of indigestion in my mind. Do you know, I never thought that you----“ “You never thought that I could think,” said she, “and I’m sure I don’t wonder. But I can think when I choose. Just now the object of my thought is to stop you thinking. Leave psychological questions alone when you are dealing with Martin. Just open your mouth, shut your eyes, and see what Martin will give you, as we used to say when children. You are a most fortunate girl. Heavens, fancy having Martin in love with one!” There was the ring of absolute sincerity about this, so true and distinct that Stella wondered. She wondered still more when, on looking at the other’s face, she saw that Lady Sunningdale’s eyes were full of tears, which she openly mopped up with a square two inches of lace. “Yes, real tears,” she said; “tears of extreme middle age, my dear. What are they made of? Water, I suppose, with just a little jealousy and a little youth still left in them, and adoration for genius and love of beauty. In fact, they are the most complicated tears I ever heard of; one or two like that from each eye and then it is over. Dearest Stella, you are such a fool. One is always a fool till one is middle-aged, and then one is young no longer. That is the tragedy of growing old. It is almost impossible to be mature and young simultaneously. You are a fool because you don’t know what a priceless, perfect gift has been given you,--Martin’s love. I envy you intolerably; I gnash my teeth with rage. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want him in the least to fall in love with me; and, to reassure you, I may say that even to my amorous eye there does not appear to be the very slightest chance of it. But I gnash my teeth because I am not young like you, so that he might fall in love with me, and at the same time wise like myself, so that I should know what to do with him.” “Ah, tell me that; do tell me how to manage, how to behave,” said Stella.