E. F. Benson

“ And Florence, shrewd, wise Florence, had said that this alone would justify her in letting prudence and reason go hang, and with the blindness of love to guide her, would account for her committing the immeasurable folly of marrying a man fifteen years her junior. Isabel, with the illumination bright about her, could have laughed at the amazing ignorance of these wise folk. ”

“ Florence paused, considering apparently the destination of the card in her hand. She wedged in, so to speak, the thin end of the business.
"Not to my knowledge," she said. "Ah, there's a space for it! Really, I began to play Patience because I thought it would be useful to see what it feels like to behave as if one was old. Before many years are up I shall be playing Patience every evening, I suppose, just because it's after dinner and not yet bedtime. I think I shall like being old—it will be very tranquil." ”

“ Florence lifted her face towards the beautiful bent head. "My dear, I feel a brute," she said, "but that's quite an illusion, because I'm anything but that. I only desire your happiness, but I do desire it with my head as well as my heart."
"As if I don't know that! But there's one thing you don't know, and that is what the hunger for happiness is when you've starved for it for years."
*****
Strong attraction is not, as Isabel began to find during the first two days of Tom Langham's absence, static in quality: it does not, that is to say, continue to exercise a stable uniform force. ”

“ The notion had no foundation in knowledge, but jealousy needs neither clay nor straw for the making of its bricks. It builds with monstrous substantiality out of nothing at all. The fact that she had not heard from him was material enough to rear such an edifice; if she had, she could have found a quarry in whatever he wrote.
But as the change in her progressed, these imaginings withered on their sapless stalks, and some sense of starvation at his absence came overwhelmingly upon her. ”

“ I grant you all the splendours of your youth now—I allow that no one in his senses would think you over thirty—but the years take their revenges. They will sit round you, ever so many of them, and make mock of you, each of them more hideous than the last. ”

“ Aren't you a liar?"
"I am," said Florence, "I guessed quite easily with whom you were going, and who it was who saw you home and chatted on the doorstep. Anyone else?"
"No, just Tom Langham and I."
They had pushed off into mid-stream by now, but it was with the intonation of a new idea that Florence spoke.
"Inclined for a little talk?" she asked.
Isabel gave a chuckle of laughter. "That means that you are," she said. "To find you playing Patience was evidence enough. You weren't practising for old age, darling; you were waiting for me to come in and corner me. ”

“ She grasped the arms of her chair and, with a wince, hoisted herself on to her feet.
"You see me a perfect cripple," she said. "Nothing the matter, but I suppose when one gets to my age one must have something, and I have rheumatics. Ah, I forgot you don't know my son Seymour. Seymour, this is Mr. Langham."
She moved stiffly across to the fireplace and rang the bell twice.
"Seymour was just telling me the most wonderful things about the attraction of the sun on rays of light," she said. "Dreadfully difficult to understand, but most interesting, all the same. I long to know Mr. Einstein. ”

“ For the last two days I've wondered sometimes why Tom didn't propose to me, and perhaps you've guessed the reason. He's getting used to the idea of marrying a woman who is—well, just a shade his senior. I don't like the notion: it rather revolts me."
"I'm delighted to hear it," said Florence. ”

“ And when life, even late, came towards you with its hands full of gifts and wonderful things, would you turn your back on them and say 'It's too late'? You told me I had plenty of admirable reasons to give you, and there they are for you. ”