Her countenance was inexorably imperturbable under his alternate blinking and gazing that drew her close and shot her distant, like a mysterious toy.

‘But,’ said she, ’I am an artist; I dislike the look of extreme age, so I conceal it as well as I can.  You are very kind to fall in with the deception:  an innocent and, I think, a proper one, before the world, though not to the gentleman who does me the honour to propose to me for my hand.  You desire to settle our business first.  You esteem me; I suppose you mean as much as young people mean when they say they love.  Do you?  Let us come to an understanding.’

‘I can,’ the melancholy General gasped, ’I say I can—­I cannot—­I cannot credit your ladyship’s . . .’

‘You are at liberty to call me Angela.’

‘Ange . . .’ he tried it, and in shame relapsed.  ‘Madam, yes.  Thanks.’

‘Ah,’ cried Lady Camper, ’do not use these vulgar contractions of decent speech in my presence.  I abhor the word “thanks.”  It is fit for fribbles.’

‘Dear me, I have used it all my life,’ groaned the General.

’Then, for the remainder, be it understood that you renounce it.  To continue, my age is . . .’

‘Oh, impossible, impossible,’ the General almost wailed; there was really a crack in his voice.

’Advancing to seventy.  But, like you, I am happy to say I have not a malady.  I bring no invalid frame to a union that necessitates the leaving of the front door open day and night to the doctor.  My belief is, I could follow my husband still on a campaign, if he were a warrior instead of a pensioner.’

General Ople winced.

He was about to say humbly, ‘As General of Brigade . . .’

’Yes, yes, you want a commanding officer, and that I have seen, and that has caused me to meditate on your proposal,’ she interrupted him; while he, studying her countenance hard, with the painful aspect of a youth who lashes a donkey memory in an examination by word of mouth, attempted to marshal her signs of younger years against her awful confession of the extremely ancient, the witheringly ancient.  But for the manifest rouge, manifest in spite of her declaration that she had not yet that morning proceeded to her paintbrush, he would have thrown down his glove to challenge her on the subject of her age.  She had actually charms.  Her mouth had a charm; her eyes were lively; her figure, mature if you like, was at least full and good; she stood upright, she had a queenly seat.  His mental ejaculation was, ‘What a wonderful constitution!’

By a lapse of politeness, he repeated it to himself half aloud; he was shockingly nervous.

‘Yes, I have finer health than many a younger woman,’ she said.  ’An ordinary calculation would give me twenty good years to come.  I am a widow, as you know.  And, by the way, you have a leaning for widows.  Have you not?  I thought I had heard of a widow Barcop in this parish.  Do not protest.  I assure you I am a stranger to jealousy.  My income . . .’