“Oh, Cis!” he sighed, “I’ve given you reason enough. But--I don’t offer it as an excuse, but do you know, I wonder, how difficult it is for a man----” “To be what is called faithful?” she asked. “Yes, I think I do. And, if _that_ were all, Robin---- It isn’t that exactly which shakes a woman’s trust to the depths, and changes the world for her. It’s what goes with it. The loss of all the other things at the same time. Her husband’s consideration, his tenderness, his friendship. That these should go too, when he’s ‘out of love,’ is what most women find so hard to bear--so incomprehensible.... You see, since I’ve been able to think dispassionately, I’ve tried to make it _my_ case. Men say ‘women are so different.’ It’s a convenient phrase, but it isn’t true. You’d be surprised to find how many women are remarkably like men in every way. I’m one of them.” She paused. All at once she lived over again a moment in the fierce Roman sunshine. “I can imagine myself tempted as you were tempted,” she added, quietly. “Tell me--what would you have done?” asked Robert, in a low voice. “I think,” she said, rather huskily, “I should have remembered the great love we had when we were married--and all the dear little everyday things afterwards. I should have remembered that, at the bottom of my heart, you were more to me, just because of those little home things, than any other human being. I should”--her voice sank lower--“I should have remembered our child. Ah!”--she drew in her breath sharply--“but that’s different for me--I was her mother!” Robert laid his cheek against her hand. “Anyhow,” she went on presently, more calmly, “I would have fought with myself. I should have been so afraid the new love would pass, and that then, when it was gone, I might find I’d lost my first real treasure. But men never seem to think of that. Perhaps they are greater gamblers than women. I don’t know.” She shook her head quietly, her eyes looking far away. “Cecily!” he implored. “Don’t say I’ve lost it. Oh, Cecily, love me again!” Her eyes, full of tears, met his. “You ask for something that’s gone,” she said, miserably. “Dead roses are always dead roses. Not all our tears will make them fresh again.” There was a long silence. Presently he rose and began to walk up and down the room. “Why did you come back?” he asked at last, sharp pain in his voice. She got up and went to him. “I thought you wanted me.” “Not if you no longer care.” His lips trembled. She put both hands on his arm, and drew him to her.