"Very well," replied Mallard, with some annoyance, "then it is one more reason why an artist should have nothing to do with domesticities. But look here, you are wrong as regards me. If ever I marry, _amico mio_, my wife shall learn to make more than a theoretical distinction between what is art and what is grossness. If ever I have children, they shall from the first he taught a natural morality, and not the conventional. If I can afford good casts of noble statues, they shall stand freely about my house. When I read aloud, by the fire side, there shall be no skipping or muttering or frank omissions; no, by Apollo! If a daughter of mine cannot describe to me the points of difference between the Venus of the Capitol and that of the Medici, she shall be bidden to use her eyes and her brains better. I'll have no contemptible prudery in my house!" "Bravissimo!" cried Spenee, laughing. "I see that my cousin Miriam is not the only person who has progressed during these years. Do you remember a certain conversation of ours at Posillipo about the education of a certain young lady?" "Yes, I do. But that was a different matter. The question was not of Greek statues and classical books, but of modern pruriencies and shallowness and irresponsibility." "You exaggerated then, and you do so now," said Spence; "at present with less excuse." Mallard kept silence for a space; then said: "Let us speak of what we have been avoiding. How has that marriage turned out?" "I have told you all I know. There's no reason to suppose that things are anything but well." "I don't like her coming abroad alone; I have no faith in that plea of work. I suspect things are _not_ well." "A cynic--which I am not--would suggest that a wish had something to do with the thought." "He would be cynically wrong," replied Mallard, with calmness. "Why shouldn't she come abroad alone? There's nothing alarming in the fact that they no longer need to see each other every hour. And one takes for granted that _they_, at all events, are not bourgeois; their life won't be arranged exactly like that of Mr. and Mrs. Jones the greengrocers." "No," said the other, musingly. "In what direction do you imagine that Cecily will progress? Possibly she has become acquainted with disillusion." "Possibly?" "Well, take it for certain. Isn't that an inevitable step in her education? Things may still be well enough, philosophically speaking. She has her life to live--we know it will be to the end a modern life. _Servetur ad imum_--and so on; that's what one would wish, I suppose? We have no longer to take thought for her." "But we are allowed to wish the best." "What _is_ the best?" said Spenee, sustaining his tone of impartial speculation. "Are you quite sure that Mr. and Mrs. Jones are not too much in your mind?" "Whatever modern happiness may mean, I am inclined to think that modern unhappiness is not unlike that of old-fashioned people."