"But I was young then," she added, suddenly withdrawing her hand from her eyes, so that the full light of the lamp fell upon her.
She chose to show that she, too, was beautiful, and she knew that Beatrice had as yet hardly seen her face as they passed through the gloomy corridors.

It was an instinct of vanity, and yet, for her purpose, it was the right one.

The effect was sudden and unexpected, and Beatrice looked at her almost fixedly, in undisguised admiration.
"Young then!" she exclaimed.

"You are young now!" "Less young than I was then," Unorna answered with a little sigh, followed instantly by a smile.
"I am five and twenty," said Beatrice, woman enough to try and force a confession from her new acquaintance.
"Are you?
I would not have thought it--we are nearly of an age--quite, perhaps, for I am not yet twenty-six.

But then, it is not the years--" She stopped suddenly.
Beatrice wondered whether Unorna were married or not.