“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 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?”