"Prefer to live in their own country? among their own people? Certainly."
"But she spends part of every year with them. There was never any open breach."
"Everybody knew that she would not live with her husband and everybody knew why," Mary said. "It has nearly broken Imogen's heart. She left him because he wouldn't lead the kind of life she wanted to lead—the kind of life she leads in England—one of mere pleasure and self-indulgent ease. She hasn't the faintest conception of duty or of patriotism. She couldn't help her husband in any way, and she wouldn't let him help her. All she cares for is fashion, admiration and pretty clothes."
"Stuff and nonsense, my dear! She doesn't think one bit more about her clothes than Imogen does. It requires more thought to look like a saint in velvet than to go to the best dressmaker and order a trousseau. I wonder how long it took Imogen to find out that way of doing her hair."
"Rose!—I must beg of you—I love her."
"But I'm saying nothing against her!"
"When I think of what she is suffering now, what you say sounds cruelly irreverent. Jack, I know, feels as I do."
"Yes, he does," said the young man. He got up now and stood, very tall, in the middle of the room looking down at Mary. "I must be off. I'll bring you those books to-morrow afternoon—though I don't see much good in your reading d'Annunzio."
"Why, if you do, Jack?" said Mary, with some wonder. And the degree of intimate equality in the relations of these young people may be gaged by the fact that he appeared to receive her rejoinder as conclusive.
"Well, he's interesting, of course, and if one wants to understand modern decadence in an all-round way—"