believe that? _Alors!_ You love your husband. No need to ask that.
But how do you love him? Are you 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 mean by
love? Or do you mean something different altogether--something vital and
strong and essential--the meeting of thought with thought, need with
need, desire with desire?"

"Yes," said Rose after a little silence, "that's what I mean."

She said it quietly, but without embarrassment and with full meaning;
and as if conscious of the adequacy of her answer, she forbore to
embroider on the theme. There was a momentary silence, while the French
woman gazed contemplatively out of the open window of the limousine, at
a skyscraping apartment building which jutted boldly into a curve of the
parkway they were flying along.

"That's a beauty, isn't it?" said Rose, following her gaze. "Every
apartment in that building has its own garage that you get to with an
elevator."

The actress nodded. "You Americans do that;" she said, "better than any
one else in the world. The--surfaces of your lives are to marvel at."

"But with nothing inside?" asked Rose. "Is that what you mean? Is--that
what you mean about--American women, that you said you'd tell me?"

Madame Greville took her time about answering. "They are an enigma to
me," she said, "I confess it. I have never seen such women anywhere, as
these upper-class Americans. They are beautiful, clever, they know how
to dress. For the first 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 ..." She finished the sentence
with the ghost of a shrug, and turned to Rose. "Can you account for
them? Were you wondering at them, too, with those great eyes of yours?
_Alors_! Are we puzzled by the same thing? What is it, to you, they
lack?"

Rose stirred a little uneasily. "I don't know very much," she said. "I
don't know them well at all, and of course I shouldn't criticize ..."

"Ah, child," broke in the actress, "there you mistake yourself. One must
always criticize. It is by the power of criticism and the courage of
criticism, that we have become different from the beasts."

"I don't know," said Rose, "except that some of them seem a little
dissati