"Why?"
"My vanity is hurt. I expected to find you, after nine years, with deep lines of suffering written on your face. You are better looking than ever. The few gray hairs about your temples are extremely becoming. Your honours have given you a new repose, a dignity and reserve power I couldn't conceive when I saw you battered by that mob."
"Allow me to return the compliment by saying that you are even a more startling disappointment to me. I was sure that I should find you broken."
"And you don't?"
Stuart smiled.
"I'd as well confess it frankly. You are far more beautiful than ever."
The woman softly laughed.
"You see no change?"
"The only changes I see merely add to your power: the worldly wisdom which marriage writes on every woman's face, a new strength, a warmth and fascination and a conscious joy at which I wonder and rage."
"Why wonder and rage?"