Cynthia put her question.
"What did you exactly mean when you said that even if the change you feared should come and some latent ambition should spring to life and snatch him back, separation need not follow, provided that on both sides there was love?"
A gravity overspread Benoliel's face.
"I meant, my dear, that sooner or later," he said gently, "after much tribulation, much revolt, one of the two will make the necessary sacrifice, and will make it whole-heartedly."
Cynthia was silent for a little while.
"Yes," she said at last in a low voice. "Of late I have begun to think that that is what you meant."
She dropped her cigarette upon a plate and rose. "Thank you, Mr. Benoliel," she said, and she walked with a trailing step to the door. At the door she paused.
"And is it always the woman who must make the sacrifice?" she asked; and Mr. Benoliel lost in a moment all that second-hand aspect of the dilettante which habitually cloaked him.
"Always," he said, with a ringing gravity of voice. "That is the law of the world, and neither man nor woman shall change it."
Cynthia opened the door and went out.