“Yes,” one woman was saying; “I said to my sister only to-day, ’What would we do if there was a sudden alarm in the night?’ If we needed a doctor or a policeman?  You know, my dear, the servants are all as old as we are.  I don’t really believe there is anyone in our road that can run.”

The other laughed comfortably and agreed, but Jean felt chilled a little, as if a cloud had obscured for a second the sun of her happiness.  In this gloriously young world of unfolding leaves and budding hawthorns and lambs and singing birds and lovers, there were people old and done who could only walk slowly in the sunshine, in whom the spring could no longer put a spirit of youth, who could not run without being weary.  How ugly age was!  Grim, menacing:  Age, I do abhor thee....

The curtain went up.

The youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys, the young Orlando, “a youth unschooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved,” talked to old Adam, and then to his own most unnatural brother.  The scene changed to the lawn before the Duke’s palace.  Lord Bidborough bade Jean observe the scenery and dresses.  “You see how simple it is, and vivid, rather like Noah’s Ark scenery?  And the dresses are a revolt against the stuffy tradition that made Rosalind a sort of principal boy....  Those dresses are all copied from old missals....  I rather like it.  Do you approve?”

Jean was not in a position to judge, but said she certainly approved.

Rosalind and Celia were saying the words she knew so well.  Touchstone had come in—­that witty knave; Monsieur le Beau, with his mouth full of news; and again, the young Orlando o’er-throwing more than his enemies.

And now Rosalind and Celia are planning their flight....  It is the Forest of Arden.  Again Orlando and Adam speak together, and Adam, with all his years brave upon him, assures his master, “My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.”

The words came to Jean with a new significance.  How Shakespeare knew ... why should she mourn because Age must come?  Age was beautiful and calm, for the seas are quiet when the winds give o’er.  Age is done with passions and discontents and strivings.  Probably those women behind her who had sighed comfortably because nobody in their road could run, whom she pitied, wouldn’t change with her to-night.  They had had their life.  It wasn’t sad to be old, Jean told herself, for as the physical sight dims, the soul sees more clearly, and the light from the world to come illumines the last dark bit of the way....

They went out between the acts and walked by the river in the moonlight and talked of the play.

Jock and Mhor were loud in their approval, only regretting that Touchstone couldn’t be all the time on the stage.  Lord Bidborough asked Jean if it came up to her expectations.

“I don’t know what I expected....  I never imagined any play could be so vivid and gay and alive....  I’ve always loved Rosalind, and I didn’t think any actress could be quite my idea of her, but this girl is.  I thought at first she wasn’t nearly pretty enough, but she has the kind of face that becomes more charming the more you look at it, and she is so graceful and witty and impertinent.”