"If women could not fulfil the ideal in that way--if they did not
constantly do it--there would be no marriages for love."

"Do you think so?" she asked, with a shaking voice. "But men--men are
ideal, too."

"Not as women are--except now and then some fool like Alford." Now,
indeed, he laughed, and he began to praise Alford from his heart, so
delicately, so tenderly, so reverently, that Mrs. Yarrow laughed too
before he was done, and cried a little, and when she rose to leave she
could not speak; but clung to his hand, on turning away, and so flung it
from behind her with a gesture that Enderby thought pretty.

At this point, Wanhope stopped as if that were the end.

"And did she let Alford come to see her again?" Rulledge, at once
romantic and literal, demanded.

"Oh yes. At any rate, they were married that fall. They are--I believe
he's pursuing his archaeological studies there--living in Athens."

"Together?" Minver smoothly inquired.

At this expression of cynicism Rulledge gave him a look that would have
incinerated another. Wanhope went out with Minver, and then, after a
moment's daze, Rulledge exclaimed: "Jove! I forgot to ask him whether
it's stopped Alford's illusions!"