If it was a demonstration that a married couple who have parted may continue to remain good friends, it was eminently successful. That appeared to be the way everybody took it. After the first shock, people seemed pleased. He and Rose-Ann had illustrated the virtues of modernistic marriage; now they were illustrating the virtues of modernistic divorce—something even more exciting! _Was_ this a divorce?—the human fact which the law in its laborious way confirmed after due and hypocritic consideration! They were apart; Rose-Ann was going away; what did that mean except a complete separation of their lives? It might be unthinkable, and yet happen just the same. Everything that had happened was unthinkable: divorce was no more so than any of the rest. He loved her? Well, she knew that. And she loved him—there was no need of questioning that. But she was going away nevertheless: and he was going to let her go away. How the devil could he stop her? Plead with her, make promises, threaten, weep? That was child’s play. Rose-Ann was not going away because he had omitted to make a scene. They were past the day of scenes; they had had scenes enough. It wasn’t that she wanted. Her going wasn’t an idle gesture to evoke his tears. She meant it. He had never understood her; he realized it now. He had had her in his arms and let her slip out of them; and he didn’t know how to win her back. It was precisely as if they had never been married at all. He was wooing her under difficulties. He wasn’t succeeding.... On the evening before she took her train for Los Angeles—she had been very sweet to him in a touch-me-not way all that week—he said to her: “Must you go, Rose-Ann? I wish you wouldn’t.” It was hard to say even so much. He said it quietly enough: there was no need to dramatize the situation. She knew what she was doing to him in going away. He couldn’t ask for her pity. She looked hastily around. She was making fudge in her dismantled studio for a party of friends, and Felix was assisting her. But nobody had overheard his—as it seemed—improper proposal. She bent close to him, touching his shoulder with hers. “Don’t spoil my good-bye party!” she whispered reproachfully; and then stealthily patted his knee with her hand, as if to make amends for her scolding. He did not ask, after that, to see her off; it was she who commanded his presence. He went sullenly. She talked about everything which least concerned them, and he wished himself away. He hated her at that moment. They were in the Pullman, with one more minute by Felix’s watch before the train started. He was wishing it were over, when she smiled reminiscently and said “Do you remember seeing me off to Springfield two years ago?” “I remember,” he said doggedly. Why did she want to torment him? “Only two years—and a whole lifetime to forget them in,” she mused. “We ought to be able to manage that.” He looked up, but did not reply. “Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?” she said.