“And you’re going to live here alone?” “Here, with the children.” “How is Dick going to do without the children?” “I think he can. He can’t bear living with me for the sake of them and I must have them.” “Ah, Cecily, this won’t last. You and Dick are a pair of naughty children. I’ve a notion to go down to the club and bring him home by the ear.” Cecily stiffened. “Promise me you won’t do anything like that! Don’t make it begin all over again now. We’ve tried and tried, and we can’t.” “But what is it? Is this nonsense Della talks about Dick’s wanting to go out more and your refusing the actual reason you’ve dared to break up your home?” “That’s what people will say,” answered Cecily, “but of course that’s just a symptom of what’s the matter with us. The trouble is that we don’t think marriage means the same thing; we don’t mean the same thing by it. And every outward expression of my idea jars on him--and his on me. We’ve become angry and furtive and quarrelsome and condemning.” “And yet I’ll bet you will be reconciled within a month. Perhaps sooner. It may be that this little separation is just what you both need to straighten out all this trouble.” “Reconciled! Reconciled!” repeated Cecily. “We’ve been reconciled a dozen times in the past year. No, father, that won’t do it.” He sat silent for a while and she watched from the window in a strange, still way. “It’s not right nor necessary. I wish your mother were here.” “I wouldn’t like her to see me a failure,” said Cecily with that note of complete depression. “Don’t be foolish. You’re not a failure. How could any one with three fine, husky children be a failure?” “It’s not enough to make success.” She rose after a little and offered him a cigar. “Some Dick left.” “He’ll be back after them,” said Mr. Warner. She smiled, but it was a tragic little smile. “You’ll have to smile better than that for the children.” “I will--for them.” “Then why not for Dick?” “Dick doesn’t care for me.” “Dick does.” She gave the dreariest little gesture of negation. “You and your mother are curiously alike, Cecily.” “No.” “I have often wondered,” he went on ruminatively after a moment, “if there wasn’t something of a case for Allgate Moore. Of course he treated your mother badly. She never even told me about it, but we all knew. After I married your mother--and I was an older man with somewhat cool judgments, my share of discretion and years of experience--I wondered about him sometimes. Because I had a hard time understanding your mother and a hard time being good to her.” “But you were good to her.”