But the old lady, deep in her game, paid no more heed to his quotation
than to him. He made a gesture toward her portrait.

"When that was painted, Josephine--"

Madame threw a glance after the gesture. The time was so long ago, the
mythology of Greece hardly more distant! At eighty the golden age of
youth must indeed appear an evanescent myth. Madame's ideas seemed to
take that direction.

"Ah, at that time we were all nymphs, and you all demigods."

"Demigods and nymphs, yes; but there was one among us who was a god
with you all."

The allusion--a frequent one with Mr. Horace--was to madame's husband,
who in his day, it is said, had indeed played the god in the little
Arcadia of society. She shrugged her shoulders. The truth is so little
of a compliment The old gentleman sighed in an abstracted way, and
madame, although apparently absorbed in her game, lent her ear. It is
safe to say that a woman is never too old to hear a sigh wafted in her
direction.

"Josephine, do you remember--in your memory--"

She pretended not to hear. Remember? Who ever heard of her forgetting?
But she was not the woman to say, at a moment's notice, what she
remembered or what she forgot.