"If I was only ten years younger!" she thought.
The letter which she received from Wurzburg had informed her that the present holder of the bill was "a middle-aged man." If he had been very young, or very old, she would have trusted in the autumn of her beauty, backed by her ready wit.

But experience had taught her that the fascinations of a middle-aged woman are, in the vast majority of cases, fascinations thrown away on a middle-aged man.

Even if she could hope to be one of the exceptions that prove the rule, the middle-aged man was an especially inaccessible person, in this case.

He had lost money by her already--money either paid, or owing, to the spy whom he had set to watch her.

Was this the sort of man who would postpone the payment of his just dues?
She opened one of the drawers in the toilette table, and took out the pearl necklace.