" said the French woman. "But not since long?"

"Six months," said Rose.

She said it so with the air of regarding it as a very considerable
period of time that Greville laughed.

"But tell me about him then, this husband of yours. I saw him perhaps at
the tea this afternoon?"

Rose laughed. "No, he draws the line at teas," she said. "He says that
from seven o'clock on, until as late as I like, he's--game, you
know--willing to do whatever I like. But until seven, there are
no--well, he says, siren songs for him."

"Tell me--you will forgive the indiscretions of a stranger?--how has it
arrived that you married him? Was it one of your American romances?"

"It didn't seem very romantic," said Rose. "I mean not much like the
romantic stories you read, and of course one couldn't make a story about
it, because there was nothing 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, I
suppose, but he said it was an adventure anyway, and that people could
never tell how it was going to come out until they tried. So we tried,
and--it came out very well."

"It 'came out'?" questioned the actress.

"Yes," said Rose. "Ended happily, you know."

"Ended!" Madame Greville echoed. Then she laughed.

Rose flushed and smiled at herself. "Of course I don't mean that," she
admitted, "and I suppose six months isn't so very long. Still you could
find out quite a good deal ..."

"What is his affair?" The actress preferred asking another question, it
seemed, to committing herself to an answer to Rose's unspoken one. "Is
he one of your--what you call tired business men?"

"He's never tired," said Rose, "and he isn't a business man. He's a
lawyer--a rather special kind of lawyer. He has other lawyers, mostly,
for his clients, he's awfully enthusiastic about it. He says it's the
finest profession in the world, if you don't let yourself get dragged
down into the stupid routine of it. It certainly sounds thrilling when
he tells about it."

The actress looked round at her. "So," she said, "you follow his work as
he follows your play? He talks seriously to you about his affairs?"

"Why, yes," said Rose, "we have wonderful talks." Then she hesitated.
"At least we used to have. There hasn't seemed to be much--time, lately.
I suppose that's it."

"One question more," said the French woman, "and not an idle one--you
will