Could such a scene have ever taken place? Could such an invitation have been made--and refused? Mrs. Robinson walked on slowly. She went again into the library; once more she knelt down before the fire, and held out her chill hands to the blaze. That any woman should have said, even to her oldest--ay, even to her dearest friend,'You may kiss me if you like,' was certainly unconventional, perhaps even a little absurd. But amazing, and almost incredible in such a case, would surely be the answer she still heard, so clearly uttered: 'No, thank you. I would rather not!' Then came the reflection, at once mortifying and consoling, that many would give--what?--well, anything even to unreason, to have had this same permission extended to themselves. She tried to place herself outside--wholly outside--the abominable little scene. Supposing a woman--the foolish woman who had acted on so strange an impulse--now came in, and telling her what had occurred, asked her advice, how would she, Penelope, make answer to such a one? Quick came the words: 'Of course you can only do one of two things--either never see him again, or go on as if nothing had happened.' She saw, felt, the woman wince. 'As to not seeing him again, that is quite out of the question. Besides, there are circumstances----' 'Oh, well,' she--Penelope--would say severely, 'of course, if you come and ask my advice without telling me _everything_----' 'No one ever tells everything,' the woman would object, 'but this much I will confide to you. There was a time--I am sure, by all sorts of things, that he remembers it more often than I do--when this man and I were lovers, when he kissed me--ah, how often!' Penelope flushed. How could the other, this wraith-like woman, tell this to her? But, even so, she would answer her patiently: 'That may be. But in those days you two loved one another dearly. To such a man that fact makes all the difference. He is the type--the rather unusual type--who would far rather have no bread than only half the loaf.' 'But how wrong! how utterly absurd!' the other woman would cry. 'How short-sighted of him! The more so that sometimes, not of course always, the half has been known to include the whole.' 'Yes--but David Winfrith is not a man to understand that. And if I may say so'--thus would she, the wise mentor, conclude her words of advice and consolation to this most unwise and impulsive friend--'I think you have really had an escape! In this case the half would certainly have come to include the whole. To-night you are tired and lonely; in the morning you will realize that you are much better off as you are. You already see quite as much of him as you want to do, when in your sober senses.' ('Oh, but I do miss him when he isn't there.')