For whatever Madame's executive ability may have been in the past, it had dwindled now to the capricious endeavours of a chronic invalid--of an aging invalid, notwithstanding her desperate struggle for youth.

Half as much energy as Madame had spent resisting Nature might have won for her a sanctified memory had it been directed toward the practice of piety, or a tablet of imperishable granite had it been devoted to as tireless a pursuit of art or science.

To her battle against age she had brought the ambition of a conqueror and the devotion of a martyr; and at the last, even to-day, there was a superb defiance in her refusal to acknowledge defeat, in her demand that her surrender should be regarded as a capitulation.
"In a day or two I hope to be able to discuss my plan with you," said Gabriella, and she could not keep the softness of pity out of her voice.
So this was what life came to, after all?
For an instant she felt the overwhelming discouragement which is the portion of those who approach life not through vision, but through outward events, who seek a solution not in the deeper consciousness of the spirit, but in the changing surface of experience.

Then, even before her glance had left Madame's golden head, her natural optimism regained control of her mind, and she told herself stoutly that if this was Madame's present, then it followed logically that Madame must have had a past, and that past must have been an agreeable one.

It was inconceivable that she should defy the laws of God for the sake of a prolongation of tragedy.
"It is a splendid investment," croaked the old woman in the midst of Gabriella's painful reflections.