“He liked to see a woman still flaunting her powers of attraction.  His taste, these days, ran not to the young, not even to the middle-aged, but to those about to enter their late fifties or even early sixties.  He liked to see what a woman could make of herself then, as if he might catch her out on her whole amorous history by virtue of the signals she still displayed.  A disappointed woman, he thought, would not bother, whereas a woman whose faith in herself had been preserved would go to town, embrace every remaining year, enjoy the afterglow of her past, and thus earn his indulgent and always amused approval.  He knew, of course, that the signs could be misleading, that not all decorative, or indeed decorated women had had a gallant past…..what he admired now, he thought, was a sort of pluck, the quality that made a woman want to dress herself boldly and sally forth in spite of the damage that the years were doing to her…..Life could go on and that it could go on undimmed.”

-Anita Brookner, Latecomers