She had been playing the fool with me, in her insolent modernity.

She had wished me to understand that I was old-fashioned; that the frame of mind of which I and my fellows were the inheritors was over and done with.

We were to be compulsorily retired; to stand aside superannuated.

It was obvious that she was better equipped for the swiftness of life.

She had a something--not only quickness of wit, not only ruthless determination, but a something quite different and quite indefinably more impressive.
Perhaps it was only the confidence of the superseder, the essential quality that makes for the empire of the Occidental.