Mrs. Pinsent reflected. “All the same,” she said, “men are very strange. I mean even our own men. You’d think you could tell what they’re like before you are married to them, but you can’t--you don’t even know for quite a long time afterwards.” Rose looked unconcerned. “It’s so funny,” she said, “but I feel as if I knew Léon better than if he was an Englishman. You see, he tells me more. I can’t quite put it to you, so that you can understand, but I think it’s his being so much more expressive.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Pinsent. “Only that isn’t what I mean, you know. I wasn’t thinking of what they said, any of them. I don’t think you can go by that; when they’re in love, they’ll say anything.” Rose hesitated. “But, Mamma,” she said, “don’t men--don’t they _ever_ stay in love?” Mrs. Pinsent resorted hastily to the hairbrush. Almost all married women dislike this question. “Of course, in a sense,” she admitted. “But when they get used to you they aren’t always very easy to hold.” Rose sat up very straight and slim. “How do you mean--_hold_?” she asked quickly. Mrs. Pinsent brushed her hair well over her face. She hoped Rose wasn’t thinking about her father. It was an unnecessary fear, Rose wasn’t thinking about any one but Léon. “Well,” Mrs. Pinsent explained, “I think there comes a time in almost all happy marriages when a man has almost too much of what he wants. He gets, if one isn’t very careful, and perhaps even if one is--a little--a little restive and bored. You see, men never have as much to amuse themselves with as women have--and that makes them take more interest in what they _do_ like even if it isn’t good for them--and other women (whom they wouldn’t really care for a bit--if they saw enough of them) may make an appeal to them just because they’re _not_ their wives. Of course, it mayn’t be at all like this with Léon, dear, only you’re going so far away from us--and he’s a Frenchman, and perhaps they don’t think of marriage quite as we do. I have never read Zola, of course, but I believe there is rather a difference in the point of view.” Mrs. Pinsent faltered--she felt through the cascade of her hair--Rose’s inflexible eyes. “What would you do, Mamma,” Rose asked quietly, “if anything--happened like that?” Mrs. Pinsent drew a long breath. For a moment she was almost sorry that Bernard Shaw hadn’t had a sharper effect upon her daughter’s imagination. Mrs. Pinsent wasn’t anxious to explain what she would do. She only wanted to be vague, and at the same time helpful; her own case had been quite different, there had been the children, and, besides, Mr. Pinsent wasn’t French. “We rather thought,” she said, “of staying on for some time in Rome, and then going to Paris for the first part of the summer. We should be quite near you then--and Agatha could go back to England for her tennis.” “I couldn’t ever leave Léon,” Rose said strangely, “whatever happened.”