“And even so,” interrupted Cecily, passionately, “granted that what you say is true, would you have me give up Dick’s friendship?--a friendship which was forced upon me by my husband, for a reason which he has since made sufficiently obvious?” “I would have you completely realize the situation, that’s all,” returned Rose, calmly. “After that, I’m quite content to leave it with you. What I can’t stand, is the silly way in which people deceive themselves, and then stand in amazement, or rend heaven with their cries, when their celestial palaces, whose foundation a fool might have seen to be rotten, come tumbling about their ears. Do what you choose as long as you know you’re doing it, is what I would say to any but the congenital idiot.” There was a moment’s silence. Then Cecily laughed. “I like you when you turn on the vinegar and vitriol,” she said. “Have another cigarette?” CHAPTER XIX For some considerable time past, the plastic heart of Philippa had been undergoing its periodical regeneration. It now yearned in all sincerity for the domestic life. Nigel’s devotion was so beautiful; his attitude of reverential adoration was so supremely right and touching. It was the forever profoundly necessary and inevitable attitude of the eternal man towards the eternal woman. At this time she thought and talked much about the sacred name of “wife.” So intense was her conviction that the true meaning of life lay in the sacramental view of marriage, that Robert and his claims sank into the background of her consciousness. In her heart, which she pictured as a sort of solemn temple of purity, Nigel was radiantly enthroned. Robert and his salary were but the steps to the altar, necessary steps, for her eager feet were still shackled by the weight of debts; by still more embarrassing encumbrances belonging to the old life, when she still sat in darkness, and knew not the light. For this reason, though Philippa strove to look upon her obligation as a penitential discipline, it was still necessary to be “nice to Robert.” As yet she could not afford to break to him, however sorrowfully, that their paths must in future diverge; hers towards the stars, and his--well, in fact, wherever he pleased. She was no longer particularly interested in Robert’s path. It had ceased to concern her. It was, however, of him she was thinking as she walked towards Westminster one morning, on her way to her secretarial duties.