"But I cared for you all the time," she pleaded.

"I was unused to your way of measuring love. I am still unused. I do
not understand."

"But now! now!"

"We were speaking of this man you saw fit to marry. What manner of man
was he? Wherein did he charm your soul? What potent virtues were his?
True, he had a golden grip,--an almighty golden grip. He knew the odds.
He was versed in cent per cent. He had a narrow wit and excellent
judgment of the viler parts, whereby he transferred this man's money to
his pockets, and that man's money, and the next man's. And the law
smiled. In that it did not condemn, our Christian ethics approved. By
social measure he was not a bad man. But by your measure, Karen, by
mine, by ours of the rose garden, what was he?"

"Remember, he is dead."

"The fact is not altered thereby. What was he? A great, gross, material
creature, deaf to song, blind to beauty, dead to the spirit. He was fat
with laziness, and flabby-cheeked, and the round of his belly witnessed
his gluttony--"

"But he is dead. It is we who are now--now! now! Don't you hear? As
you say, I have been inconstant. I have sinned. Good. But should not
you, too, cry _peccavi_? If I have broken promises, have not you? Your
love of the rose garden was of all time, or so you said. Where is it
now?"