But _you_ will not forget; you will die under the burden of your husband’s past. IRENE. I! oh, no! What is a man’s past to the woman who marries him! LESLIE. It is her pride or her shame, the jewel she wears upon her brow or the mud which clings to her skirts! It is her light or her darkness; her life or her death! IRENE. You’re too young a wife to lecture me like this! The only difference between me and other women will be that Lord Dangars’s story is public and their husband’s vices are unrevealed! LESLIE. That is not true! You have no right to defend yourself in that way. IRENE. It _is_ true! What woman who doesn’t wish to be lied to would ask her husband to unfold the record of his life of--liberty? LESLIE. What woman would----! _I_ would! IRENE. Simpleton! LESLIE. A thousand times, I would! Oh, under my dear husband’s roof how dare you think so cruelly of good men! [_She runs to DUNSTAN as he enters dressed for travelling._] MRS. STONEHAY. [_Rejoining them with WILFRID._] Irene, we are forgetting our drive to Fiesole. DUNSTAN RENSHAW. [_To LESLIE._] What’s the matter? Have I been away too long? LESLIE. It is always too long when you are away. MRS. STONEHAY. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Renshaw. LESLIE. [_Distantly._] Good-bye. MRS. STONEHAY. My dear Mr. Renshaw, everything here is too charming! IRENE. [_To LESLIE._] Forgive me. My life has made me bitter. Sometimes I am nearly mad. LESLIE. Come and see me again, Irene. When you know my husband better you will realize how little your world has taught you. [_LESLIE kisses IRENE._] MRS. STONEHAY. Irene, I believe I can see that obstinate young woman sitting down in a vineyard--not a quarter of a mile from this house yet. There is a limit even to my forbearance. [_WILFRID, MRS. STONEHAY, and IRENE go out. LESLIE gives DUNSTAN a cup of tea._] LESLIE. The stirrup cup. DUNSTAN RENSHAW. You will think of me in the toils of the Roman furniture and _bric-à-brac_ dealers, won’t you? LESLIE. Think of you! DUNSTAN RENSHAW. I shall fight through the worry of it in a couple of days and then--there will be the first home of our own making. Just imagine when we skip up the stone stairs in the Via Sistina and I throw open the door---- LESLIE. Our own door! DUNSTAN RENSHAW. Our own door--and we see our own chairs and tables, our own pictures, our own---- [_He pauses suddenly._] LESLIE. Dun! Dun, dear? DUNSTAN RENSHAW. This separating, even for a day or two, is a heavy-hearted business. LESLIE. It shall always be so, dear, always. DUNSTAN RENSHAW. While I’m gone you’ll not forget the lame girl in the Via Vellutini--or Pietro’s old mother----? LESLIE. No, dear, no. DUNSTAN RENSHAW. And--and double the allowance to those little children we helped yesterday. LESLIE. If you wish it; but the father is working here now in our garden---- DUNSTAN RENSHAW. Never mind--double it, treble it! I don’t spend enough, half enough, in conscience money.