In view of what he had already done, Mrs. Grove's proposal seemed unavoidably reasonable. He would telephone Fanny again in the morning and explain. Fanny, his wife! Well, he continued, as though he were angrily retorting to a criticism from without, no man ever better realized the splendid qualities of his wife. That was beyond contradiction; and he sharply added that not Fanny, but the role of a wife, a housewife, was under observation. Mrs. Grove was married, but that didn't keep her from the Malmaison, at what Eastlake disapprovingly called all hours of the night. She had no aspect of a servitude which, while it promised the most unlimited future rewards, took the present grace, the charm, from women. That--the consequent loss or gain--was open to question; but the fact remained: for the majority of women marriage was fatal to their persons. Only the rich, the fortunate and the unamenable escaped. “In a very few minutes now,” Mrs. Grove said, “you will be able to sleep.” “I've never been wider awake,” he protested; “I was thinking of how marriage submerged most women while you escaped.” She laughed quietly, incomprehensibly. “Well,” he insisted, aggrieved, “haven't you?” She leaned toward him; almost, he told himself, there was a flash of animation on her immobile face. “Escape, what do you mean by that?” she demanded. “Does anyone escape--will young Morris and Mina? And you?” “Oh, not I,” he replied, thrown off his mental balance by the rapid attack of her questioning; “I am tied in a thousand ways. But you surprise me.” “I could,” she remarked, coldly, returning to her corner. “Your self-satisfaction makes me rage, How do you dare, knowing nothing, to decide what I am and what I can do? You're like William, everyone I meet--so sure for others.” “No, I'm not,” he contradicted her with a rude energy; “and, after all, I didn't accuse you of much that was serious. I only said you were apparently above the circumstances that spoil so many women.” “It isn't necessary to repeat yourself,” she reminded him disagreeably; “I have a trace of memory.” “And with it,” he answered, “a very unpleasant temper.” “Quite so,” she agreed, once more calm; “you seem fated to tell me about myself. I don't mind, and it gives you such a feeling of wisdom.” The car stopped before the Grove house and, within, her good-night was indifferent even for her. What, he wondered, what the devil, had upset her? He had never encountered a more incomprehensible display of the arrogantly feminine.