"I do. And I know exactly how pretty she'll be in five years' time. That's the worst of those thin women with little, delicate, pink faces. You know the precise minute when a girl like Dora'll go off. You know the pinkness will begin to run when she's once past thirty. You can see the crows' feet coming, and you know exactly how far they'll have got by the time she's thirty-five. You know that when she's forty there'll be two little lines like thumb-nail marks beside her ears, just here, and you know that when she's forty-five the dear little lobes will begin to shrivel up, and that when she's fifty the corners of her mouth will collapse." "And then?" "Then, if you're a wise man you don't know any more." "Poor little Dora. You _are_ a brute, Wilfrid." "I'm not a brute. I was going to say that the best of you, dear, is that I don't know how you'll look at fifty. I don't know how you'll look to-morrow--to-night. You're never the same for ten minutes together. When you get one of those abominable headaches you look perhaps as old as you are. You're twenty-seven, aren't you?" "Yes." "Well, I dare say you'll look twenty-seven when you are fifty. There's something awfully nice about that sort of prettiness. It leaves things delightfully vague. I can't _see_ you fifty." "Perhaps I never shall be." "Perhaps not. That's just it. You leave it open to me to think so. I don't seriously contemplate your ever being forty. In fact your being thirty is one of those melancholy and disastrous events that need not actually occur. It's very tactful of you, Kitty." "All the same, I'm not as pretty as Dora Nicholson." "Dora Nicholson!" "You can't say she isn't awfully pretty." "I don't say it." His voice rose to an excited falsetto. "She _is_ awfully pretty--extravagantly, preposterously pretty. And she'll have to pay for it." "Oh--we all have to pay for it." "Sooner _or_ later." "Poor Dora----" "Poor Dora. Perhaps we have been rather brutal to her. She's good for another five years." "Only five years? And what will she do then?" "Oh, she'll be all right. She'll rouge a bit, and powder a bit, and dress like anything. You needn't be unhappy about Dora. I can tell you Dora isn't going to be unhappy about you. Unhappiness would be extremely unbecoming to her, and she knows it. It isn't particularly becoming to any woman. You would be less damaged by it than most perhaps." "You've never seen me unhappy." "I hope to God I never shall." "You needn't be afraid, Wilfrid, you never will." "I wish," she said presently, "I wish you liked Dora Nicholson." "I do like her." "I wish you liked her as much as me." "That's very noble of you, Kitty. But may I ask, why?" "Because it would make things simpler." "Simpler? I should have said myself that that was just where complications might occur. Supposing I liked Dolly better than you, what then?" "Oh, that would make it simpler still."