Clementina sighed. Youth is so solemn, so futile, so like the youth of all the generations that have passed away. The child was suffering from one of the natural sequelæ of a ruptured engagement. Once maidens in her predicament gat them into nunneries and became nuns and that was the end of them. Whether they regretted their rash act or not, who can say? Nowadays they rush into philanthropic or political activity, contriving happy evenings for costermongers or unhappy afternoons for Cabinet Ministers. The impulse driving them to nunnery, Whitechapel, or Caxton Hall has always been merely a reaction of sex; and the duration of the period of reaction is proportionate to the degree of brokenness of the heart. As soon as the heart is mended, sex has her triumphant way again and leaps in response to the eternal foolishness that the maiden blushes to read in the eyes of a comely creature in trousers. This Clementina knew, as all those—and only those—whose youth is behind them know it; and so, when Etta with an air of cold finality said that she had made up her mind, Clementina sighed. It was so ludicrously pathetic. Etta’s heart had not even been broken; it had not sustained the wee-est, tiniest fracture; it had been roughly handled; that was all. In a month’s time she would no more yearn to become a hospital nurse than to follow the profession of a chimney-sweep. In a month’s time she would be flirting with merry, whole-hearted outrageousness. In a month’s time, if the True Prince came along, she might be in love. Really in love. What a wonderful gift to a man would be the love of this fragrant wisp of womanhood! “I’ve quite made up my mind, dear,” she repeated. “Then there’s nothing more to be said,” replied Clementina. A shade of disappointment spread over the girl’s face, like a little cloud over a May morning. She jumped from the window-seat and slid to a stool by Clementina’s chair. “But there’s lots to be said. Lots. It’s a tremendously important decision in life.” “Tremendous,” said Clementina. “It means that I’ll die an old maid.” “Like me,” said Clementina. “If I’m like you I won’t care a bit!” “Lord save us,” said Clementina. The girl actually took it for granted that she enjoyed being an old maid. “I’ll have a little house in the country all covered with honeysuckle, and a pony-trap and a dog and a cat and you’ll come and stay with me.” “I thought you were going to be a hospital nurse,” said Clementina. “So I am; but I’ll live in the house when I’m off duty.”