"Bertha," he said, "there has been one thing in the midst of all--all this, to which you have been true. You have loved your children when it has seemed that nothing else would touch you. I say 'seemed,' because I swear to you I am unmoved in my disbelief in what you persist in holding before me--for what reason you know best. You love your children; you don't lie to me about that--you don't lie to yourself about it. Perhaps it is only nature, as you said once, and not tenderness; I don't know. I don't understand you; but give yourself a few moments to think of them now." He saw the hand holding the screen tremble; he could not see her face. "What--must I think of them?" He looked down at the floor, knitting his brows and dragging at his great mustache. "I overestimate the importance of things," he said. "I don't seem to know much about the standards society sets up for itself; but it does not seem a trifle to me that their mother should be spoken of lightly. There was a girl I knew once--long ago"--He stopped and looked up at her with sudden, sad candor. "It is you I am thinking of, Bertha," he said; "you, as I remember you first when you came home from school. I was thinking of your mother and your dependence upon her, and the tenderness there was between you." "And you were thinking," she added, "that Janey's mother would not be so good and worthy of trust. That is true." "I have no answer to make to that, Bertha," he said. "None." She laid the screen upon her lap once more. "But it _is_ true," she said; "it is _true_. Why do you refuse to believe it? Are you so good that you cannot? Yes, you are! As for me--what did I tell you? I am neither good nor bad, and I want excitement. Nine people out of ten are so, and I am no worse than the rest of the nine. One must be amused. If I were religious, I should have Dorcas societies and missions. As I am not, I have"--she paused one second, no more--"I have Senator Planefield." She could bear the inaction of sitting still no longer. She got up. "You have an ideal for everything," she said, "for men, women, and children,--especially for women, I think. You are always telling yourself that they are good, and pure, and loving, and faithful; that they adore their children, and are true to their friends. It is very pretty, but it is not always the fact. You try to believe it is true of me; but it is not. I am not your ideal woman. I have told you so. Have you not found out yet that Bertha Amory is not what you were so sure Bertha Herrick would be?" "Yes," he answered. "You--you have convinced me of that." "It was inevitable," she continued. "I was very young then. I knew nothing of the world or of its distractions and temptations. A thousand things have happened to change me. And, after all, what right had you to expect so much of me? I was neither one thing nor the other, even then; I was only ignorant. You could not expect me to be ignorant always."