"It's not extraordinary; if you'd only believe me it's the indifference thousands of women feel for their husbands; only in our case special circumstances--your absence, mother's money--have made me able to realise it." "Well, if thousands of women have this indifference, which you say isn't so very extraordinary, for their husbands, what--what's the way all these chaps win these thousands of wives back?" "They don't." "But I want to win you back. Here and now, humiliating as it sounds, I declare I'd follow you around on my knees if--if it meant getting you." "It wouldn't. I'm very sorry. Do you think you love me?" His hand dropped down heavily on her shoulder. "Yes!" "I wish I loved you, but I don't. You--you've tired me out. I suppose that's it." "Very well, I'll take what you say. But I've another question. Don't you guess where all this is driving me?" "Don't hold me like that, Osborn." "I'll only do it a few minutes. Answer my question. What do you expect of me?" "Absolutely nothing," she owned. "And you don't care what I do; where I go; what happens?" "It's curious; I don't. Once if I thought you met, looked at, spoke to, any other woman prettier or better dressed than I could be, I suffered torture. But now, I'm through with it. I'm sorry it should be so." "But that's that," said Osborn roughly, with a brief laugh. He pulled her to him strongly, kissing her. "I love you, you know. But if you've no more use for me--" "Well?" "Don't expect too much of me, that's all." "I have told you that I expect nothing." "Then you ought to!" he broke out angrily. "I thought men appreciated complaisant wives." "Complaisant? It's callousness; don't-careness. You mean me to understand, then, that you've reckoned with everything?" "No, I don't. I mean you to understand that I don't trouble to do any reckoning about you at all." As she uttered the words she was conscious of the brutality of them; but she was speaking truth, representing those feelings which had taken the place of love-emotions in her heart; and what else was there to say? "I must say," he said, "you're candid." "I want to be. If we once thoroughly understood each other we'd shake down better and go our ways in peace. I don't want formal separation, for the children's sake." "Formal separation? If we had that, because you refused to live with me, desertion would be constituted and _I'd_ get the children, you know." "I wonder," she said, starting. "I should fight." He saw the set meditation on her face under the moonlight. "Would there be nothing I could say?" she asked, lifting her eyes to his. "I wonder if there'd be no countercharge ingenuity could bring?"