"I'll come and sit in the garden, too," said Miss Fleet in a calm and business-like manner. Charmian thought she was going to add, "And bring my work with me." But she did not. On the first terrace there were several people in long chairs looking lazy; women with picture papers, men smoking, old buffers talking about politics and Arabs. Charmian glanced at them and instinctively went on, descending toward a quieter part of the prettily and cleverly arranged garden. The weather was beautiful, warm, but not sultry. Already she was conscious of a feeling of greater ease. "Shall we sit here?" she said, pointing to two chairs under some palm trees by a little table. "Yes. Why not?" returned Susan Fleet. They sat down. "Do you feel better?" asked Susan. "I shall." "It must be dreadful being ill at sea. I never am." "And you have travelled a great deal, haven't you?" "Yes, I have. I often go with Adelaide. Once we went to India." "Was it there you became a Theosophist?" "That had something to do with it, I suppose. When we were at Benares Adelaide thought she would like to live there. The day after she thought so she found we must go away." Miss Fleet carefully peeled off her white gloves and leaned back. Her odd eyes seemed to drop in their sockets, as if they were trying to tumble out. "Isn't it--" Charmian began, and stopped abruptly. "Yes?" "I don't know what I was going to say." "Perhaps a great bore not to be one's own mistress?" suggested Miss Fleet, composedly. "Something of that sort perhaps." "Oh, no! I'm accustomed to it. Freedom is a phrase. I'm quite as free as Adelaide. It's usually a great mistake to pity servants." "And oneself? I suppose you would say it was a great mistake to pity oneself?" "I never do it," replied Miss Fleet. She had charming hands. One of them lay on the little table with a beam of the sun on it. "Perhaps you haven't great desires? Perhaps you don't want many things?" "I suppose I've been like most women in that respect. But I shall be fifty almost directly." "How frightful!" was Charmian's mental comment. "No, it isn't." "Isn't what?" said Charmian, startled. "It isn't at all awful to be fifty, or any other age, if you accept it quietly as inevitable. But everything one kicks against hurts one, of course. I expect to pass a very pleasant day on my fiftieth birthday." Charmian put her chin in her hand. "How did you know what I thought?" "A girl of your age would be almost certain to think something of that kind." "Yes, I suppose so." Charmian sighed, and then suddenly felt rather angry, and lifted her chin. "But surely I need not be exactly like every other girl of twenty-one!" she exclaimed, with much more vivacity. "You aren't. No girl is. But you all think it must be dreadful to be a moneyless spinster of fifty. I believe, for my part, that there's many a _vieille fille_ who is not particularly sorry for herself or for the man who didn't want to marry her."