"Well, then—if she is sufficiently attractive, a man doesn't usually care."
"Am I sufficiently attractive?"
"Yes."
"Then—why do you hesitate?... I know the rules of the game. When one wearies, the other must pretend to.... And then they make their adieux very amiably.... Isn't that a man's ideal of an affair with a pretty woman?"
He laughed: "I suppose so."
"So do I. You are no novice, are you—as I am?"
"Are you a novice, Rosalie?"
"Yes, I am. You probably don't believe it. It is absurd, isn't it, considering these lonely years—considering what he has done—that I haven't anything with which to reproach myself."
"It is very admirable," he said.
"Oh, yes, theoretically. I was too fastidious—perhaps a little bit too decent. It's curious how inculcated morals and early precepts make mountains out of what is really very simple travelling. If a woman ceases to love her husband, she is going to miss too much in life if she's afraid to love anybody else.... I suppose I have been afraid."