Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III ' IAHAT day Craven walked away from Lady Sellingworth's A house with Miss Van Tuyn, leaving Sir Seymour Port- man behind him. Miss Van Tuyn was staying with a friend at the Hyde Park Hotel, and, as she said she wanted some air, Craven offered to accompany her there on foot. "Do!" she said in her frank and very conscious way. "I'm afraid of London on a Sunday." "Afraid!" "As I'm afraid of a heavy, dull person with a morose expression. Please don't be angry." Craven smiled. "I know! Paris is much lighter in hand than London on a Sunday." "Isn't it? But there are people in London! Isn't she a precious person?" "Lady Sellingworth ?" "Yes. You have marvellous old women in London 'vho do all that we young people do, and who look astonishing. They might almost be somewhere in the thirties when one knows they are really in the sixties. They play games, ride, can still dance, have perfect digestions, sit up till two in the morning and are out shopping in Bond Street as fresh as paint by eleven, having already written dozens of acceptances to invitations, arranged dinners, theatre parties, heaven knows what! Made of cast iron, they seem. They even manage somehow to be fairly attractive to young men. They are living marvels, and I take off my toque to them. But Lady Sellingworth, quite old, ravaged, devastated by time one might say, who goes nowhere and who doesn't even play bridge— she beats them all. I love her. I love her wrinkled distinction, her husky voice, her careless walk. She walks anyhow, like a woman alone on a country road. She looks even olderthan she is. But what does it matter? If I were a man " "Would you fall in love with her?" Craven interposed. "Oh, no!" She shot a blue glance at him. "But I should love her—if only she...