“Do you know,” said Colonel Musgrave, with deliberation, “it is she I cannot understand.  To discover that he had been systematically hoodwinking her for some ten years; that, after making away with as much of her fortune as he was able to lay hands on, he has betrayed business trust after business trust in order to—­to maintain another establishment; that he has never cared for her, and has made her his dupe time after time, in order to obtain money for his gambling debts and other even less reputable obligations—­she must realize all these things now, you know, and one would have thought no woman’s love could possibly survive such a test.  Yet, she is standing by him through thick and thin.  Yes, I confess, Amelia Lethbury puzzles me.  I don’t understand her mental attitude.”

Musgrave was looking at Anne very intently as he ended.

“Why, but of course,” said Anne, “she realizes that it was all the fault of that—­that other woman; and, besides, the—­the entanglement has been going on only a little over eight years—­not ten, Rudolph.”

She was entirely in earnest; Colonel Musgrave could see it plainly.

“I admit I hadn’t looked on it in that light,” said he, at length, and was silent for a moment Then, “Upon my soul, Anne,” he cried, “I believe you think the woman is only doing the natural thing, only doing the thing one has a right to expect of her, in sticking to that blackguard after she has found him out!”

Mrs. Charteris raised her eyebrows; she was really surprised.  “Naturally, she must stand by her husband when he is in trouble; why, if his own wife didn’t, who would, Rudolph?  It is just now that he needs her most.  It would be abominable to desert him now.”

Anne paused and thought.  “Depend upon it, she knows a better side of his nature than we can see; she knows him, possibly, to have been misled, or to have acted thoughtlessly; because otherwise, she would not stand by him so firmly.”  Having reached this satisfactory conclusion, Anne began to laugh—­at Musgrave’s lack of penetration, probably.  “So, you see, Rudolph, in either case, her conduct is perfectly natural.”

“And this,” he cried, “this is how women reason!”

“Am I very stupid?  Jack says I am a bit illogical at times.  But, Rudolph, you mustn’t expect a woman to judge the man she loves; if you call on her to do that, she doesn’t reason about it; she just goes on loving him, and thinking how horrid you are.  Women love men as they do children; they punish them sometimes, but only in deference to public opinion.  A woman will always find an excuse for the man she loves.  If he deserts her, she is miserable until she succeeds in demonstrating to herself it was entirely her own fault; after that, she is properly repentant, but far less unhappy; and, anyhow, she goes on loving him just the same.”

The colonel pondered over this.  “Women are different,” he said.

“I don’t know.  I think that, if all women could be thrown with good men, they would all be good.  Women want to be good; but there comes a time to each one of them when she wants to make a certain man happy, and wants that more than anything else in the world; and then, of course, if he wants—­very much—­for her to be bad, she will be bad.  A bad woman is always to be explained by a bad man.”