Part 18 (2/2)
”You are an extraordinary woman!” said Lady Sellingworth.
”Extraordinary! Why?”
”Because you always seem so satisfied to live quite alone. I hate solitude. I'm afraid of it.”
Suddenly she felt that she must be partially frank with her hostess.
”Is self-respect a real companion for a woman?” she said. ”Can one sit with it and be contented? Does it repay a woman for all the sacrifices she has offered up to it? Is it worth the sacrifices? That's what I want to know.”
”I dare say that depends on the woman's mental make up,” replied Miss Briggs. ”One woman, perhaps, might find that it was, another that it was not.”
”Yes, we are all so different, so dreadfully different, one from another.”
”It would be very much duller if we weren't.”
”Even as it is life can be very dull.”
”I should certainly not call your life dull,” said Miss Briggs.
”Anyhow, it's dreadful!” said Lady Sellingworth, with sudden abandonment.
”Why is it dreadful?”
”Caroline, I was fifty a few days ago.”
As Lady Sellingworth said this she observed her friend closely to see if she looked surprised. Miss Briggs did not look surprised. And she only said:
”Were you? Well, I shall be fifty-eight in a couple of months.”
”You don't look it.”
”Perhaps that's because I haven't looked young for the last thirty years.”
”I hate being fifty. The difficulty with me is that my--my nature and my temperament don't match with my age. And that worries me. What is one to do?”
”Do you want me to advise you about something?”
”I think I do. But it's so difficult to explain. Perhaps there is a time to give up. Perhaps I have reached it. But if I do give up, what am I to do? How am I to live? I might marry again.”
”Why not?”
”It would have to be an elderly man, wouldn't it?”
”I hope so.”
”I--I shouldn't care to marry an elderly man. I don't want to.”
”Then don't do it.”
”You think if I were to marry a comparatively young man--”
<script>