“What was the temptation?” she asked uncertainly.
He waited an instant, then answered with deliberation:
“The temptation of seeing you again.”
“I should have thought you disapproved of me far too much for that to be the case! Saint Michel, don’t you think you’re rather hard on me?”
“Am I? I had an old-fashioned mother, you see. Perhaps my ideas about women are out of date.”
“Tell me them.”
He regarded her reflectively.
“Shall I? Well, I like to think of a woman as something sweet and fragrant, infinitely tender and compassionate—not as a marauder and despoiler. Wherever she comes, the place should be the happier for her coming—not bereft by it. She should be the helper and healer in this battered old world. That’s the sort of woman I should want my wife to be; that’s the sort of woman my mother was.”
“And you think I’m—not like that? I’m the marauder, I suppose?”
He remained silent, and Magda sat with her bent head, fingering the stem of her wine-glass restlessly.