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The unspoken corollary was that Walter was also more acutely conscious than Keble of certain shades of herself, and in that moment a ray of light penetrated to an obscure recess of Louise’s mind, a recess that had refused to admit certain unlovely truths and heterodoxies,—a recess that had declined, for instance, to put credence in the change of heart of so many women in books and plays: Nora Helmer, Mélisande, Guinevere; and for the first time in her life she understood how there could be a psychology of infidelity. For the first time she understood that one might have to be unfaithful in the letter to remain faithful in the spirit. Just as one might have to break a twenty-dollar bill to obtain a twenty dollars’ worth. It was a strangely sweet, strangely unhappy moment, but only a moment, for almost immediately she was recalled to a consciousness of hand-bags, cloaks, veils, and small, nameless duties of eyes and hands and lips. Then Mrs. Windrom kissed her good-bye, with an emphasized friendliness that only set her mind at work wondering what it was that Mrs. Windrom had left unsaid or undone that she should feel obliged to emphasize the kiss. Louise could find no words to define the gap that lay between them; but she was sure that Mrs. Windrom defined it to a T, and had stated it to a T in letters to Girlie, who would restate it to Alice Eveley and the Tulk-Leamingtons!