"It shows that you are very amiable and sanguine," she said. "I should have been even more fortunate than it has been my fate to be if I had not changed in ten years. Think of the good fortune of having stood still so long,--of having grown no older, no wiser. No," in a lower voice, "I am not the Bertha you used to know." But the next instant, almost as soon as she had uttered the words, she lifted her eyes with the daring little smile in them. "But I am very well preserved," she said. "I am really very well preserved. I am scarcely wrinkled at all, and I manage to conceal the ravages of time. And, considering my years, I am quite active. I danced every dance at the Ashworths' ball, with the kindly assistance of Mr. Arbuthnot and his friends. There were _débutantes_ in the room who did not dance half as often. The young are not what they were in my generation,--though probably the expiring energies of advanced age are flaming in the socket and"-- She stopped suddenly, letting her hands drop at her sides. "No," she said again, "I--I am not the Bertha you used to know--and this morning I am--tired enough to be obliged to admit it." Tredennis took a quick step toward her; the hot blood showed itself under his dark skin. What he had repressed in the last months got the better of him so far that he had no time to reflect that his stern, almost denunciatory, air could scarcely be ranked among ordinary conventionalities, and that an ordinarily conventional expression of interest might have been more reasonably expected from him than a display of emotion, denunciatory or otherwise. "Can you expect anything else?" he said. "Is your life a natural one? Is it a natural and healthy thing that every hour of it should contain its own excitement, and that you should not know what simple, normal rest means? Who could be blind to the change which has taken place in you during the last few weeks? Last night you were so tired and unstrung that your hand trembled when you lifted your glass to your lips. Arbuthnot told you then it was a mistake; I tell you now that it is worse,--it is madness and crime." He had not thought of what effect he would produce,--his words were his indignant masculine protest against her pallor and weakness, and the pain he had borne in silence for so long. It seemed, however, that he had startled her singularly. She rose from her reclining posture slowly and sat upright, and her hands trembled more than they had done the night before. "Why," she faltered, "why are you so angry?" "That," he returned bitterly, "means that I have no right to be angry, of course! Well, I am willing to admit it,--I have no right. I am taking a liberty. I don't even suggest that you are making a mistake,--as Mr. Arbuthnot did; I am rough with you, and say something worse."