The Real Adventure

it infuriated him so-why had he glared at her with that air of astounded incredulity, on discovering that she wasn't prepared to take him seriously? There could be only one

arriage with Rodney had brought her, did not, evidently, regard the dapper little architect with feelings anything like the mild, faintly contemptuous mirth that h

nd took them both home to tea with her afterward. And when the talk fairly got going, she toss

ion under the amusement they freely expressed over her youth and inexperience and s

," she said, apropos of the m

e to him. "Because, he's been positively-what do you ca

nowledged; "in the wr

r women exch

re," asked Frederica, "in the last fifteen year

idiculous. Of course if you were alone on a desert island with him like the Bab Ballad, I s

ected, faute de mieux, to tolerate Bertie. So if you found him tolerated seriously

ld have anything to do with me; said I was a classic ty

teresting man in the world. Oh, I don't mean we don't love them, or that we want to change them-permanently, you know. Take Frederica and me. We wouldn't exchange for anything. Yet, we used to have long arguments. I've said that Ma

iling hot tea. But the way she had hung up the ending to he

I mean, it isn't like Walter Mill, when he was just back from the Legation at Pekin, or even like Jimmy Wallace, who spends half his time playing around with all sorts of impossib

ca, "everybody likes to flirt

oed. She didn't wan

hen, rather tentativel

re always looking to see if they do. And when they don't, they think their emotional natures are being starved, or some silly thing like that. And of course, if you're that way, you're always trying experiments, just the way people do with health foods. In the end

y. It was silly, of course, always to be asking yourself questions. But after all, you didn't question a thing that wasn't questionable. Th

And equally, too, there were cold-blooded, designing, mercenary wives. (In the back of her mind was the unacknowledged notion that these people existed generally in novels. She knew, of course, that those characters must have real prototypes somewhere

r variants on the same theme since. She had seen Rodney drop off now and again into a scowling abstraction, during which it was so evident he didn't w

routine, they had so little time alone together that these moments, when they came, had almost the tension

founded on the assumption that, allowing for occasional exceptions, the husbands and wives felt toward each other as she and Rodney did-were held together by the same irresistible,

ought her the misgiving that marriage was not, perhaps, even between people who loved each other,-betw

g concerned, or ever could concern, herself; but the point was, it formed a nucleus, and the property of a nucleus is that it has the power

t by saying that though she had always supposed the fundamental sex attraction between men and women to be the same in its essentials,

rmal social hierarchy took her up and, upon examination, took her in. Playing in English as she did, and with an American supporting company, she did not make a great financial success (the Continental technique, especially when contrasted so intimately with the one we are familiar with does not attract us), but socially she was a sensation. So during her four weeks in Chicago, while she played to houses that couldn't b

from afar. What could she, whose acquaintance with Europe was limited to one three-months trip, undertaken by the

to heavily cultured illuminati like the Howard Wests, or to clever creatures like Hermione Woodruff and Frederi

make the remark already quoted, to the effect that American women seemed to her to

be taken. But her look flashed out beyond the confines of the circle and encountered a pair of big luminous eyes, under brows that h

l me who you are and why you

frightened a bit, nor, exactly, embarrassed; certainly not into pretendin

little bend in her voice that carried that impression. "And I suppose I was-looki

flushed young face; took a sort of plunge, so it seemed to Rose, to the v

f a moment, glanced at a tiny watch set in a ring upon the middle finger of her right h

efore I go to the theater, and if it is to be done to-day, it must be now. I am sorry. I have had a very pleasant aft

which was simply that she had found something better worth her while, for the moment, than that tea. It occurred to Rose that there wasn't a woman in town-not even terrible old Mrs. Crawford, Constance's mother-in-law, who could have d

s seemed to be the thing called for. Because no sooner were they seated in the actress' car and hea

name-Rose something. But that tells

man I married is-one of them, in a way. I mean, becau

said the French woman.

ths," sa

arding it as a very considerable p

s husband of yours. I saw him pe

ven o'clock on, until as late as I like, he's-game, you know-willing to do wha

a stranger?-how has it arrived that you marri

to tell. We just happened to get acquainted, and we knew almost straight off that we wanted to marry each other, so we did. Some people thought it was a little-headlong,

'?" questione

se. "Ended hap

Gréville echoed.

n that," she admitted, "and I suppose six months isn't so

ion, it seemed, to committing herself to an answer to Rose's uns

awyers, mostly, for his clients, he's awfully enthusiastic about it. He says it's the finest profession in the world, if y

d, "you follow his work as he follows your pla

she hesitated. "At least we used to have. There hasn'

a little indulgent, a little cool, a little contemptuous of the grossness of masculine clay, and still willing to tolerate it as part of your bargain? Is that what you me

er a little silence,

bore to embroider on the theme. There was a momentary silence, while the French woman gazed contemplatively out of the open wind

her gaze. "Every apartment in that building has

he said, "better than any one else in the worl

at what you mean? Is-that what you mean about

rst hour, or day, or week, of an acquaintance, they have a charm quite incomparable. And, up to a certain point, they exercise it. Your jeunes filles are amazing. All over the world, men go mad about them. But when they marry ..." Sh

very much," she said. "I don't know them well

e must always criticize. It is by the power of criticism and the c

em seem a little dissatisfied and restless, as if-

nsations; sensations mostly mental, irritating or soothing-a pleasant variety. She waits to be made to feel; she perpetually-tastes. One may demand whether it is that their precocity has exhausted them before they are ripe, or whether your Puritan strain survives to make all pa

e men in petticoats, you have a vast number. But a woman, great by

ose, "that I knew wha

-world; great women, at all events, with the power to make or ruin great careers; women at whose feet men of the first class lay all they have; women the tact of whose hands is trusted to determine great matters. They may not be beautiful (I have seen a

. They are willing to take the art of womanhood seriously, make sac

ce she never would have any trouble making her husband "want" her as much as she liked. This idea of maki

want to triumph at it? Suppose one wants

he same spirit, make the sacrifices-pay the price they demand. Mon dieu! How I have preac

st; told about her life before and since her marriage to Rodney, about her friends, her amuse

word of your-preaching. You said so

All the sermon you need can be boiled down into a sentence, and

e," sa

nor even can be bought-cheap. Everything of value in your life will co

er house-the ideal house that had cost Florence McCrea and Bertie Willis so many hours and so many hair-line deci

only cautiously, after a careful thinking out. But strangest of all was this last observation

he friends; and then, with her marriage, the sudden change in her estate, the thrills, the excitement, the comparative luxuries of the new life. Why,-even Rodney himself, about whom everything else swung in an orbit! What price had she pa