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"I know more of the world than you do," she said. "I know how men

like Stiva look at it. You speak of his talking of you with her.

That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their home and

wife are sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still

looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their

feeling for their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be

crossed between them and their families. I don't understand it,

but it is so."

"Yes, but he has kissed her...."

"Dolly, hush, darling. I saw Stiva when he was in love with you.

I remember the time when he came to me and cried, talking of you,

and all the poetry and loftiness of his feeling for you, and I

know that the longer he has lived with you the loftier you have

been in his eyes. You know we have sometimes laughed at him for

putting in at every word: 'Dolly's a marvelous woman.' You have

always been a divinity for him, and you are that still, and this

has not been an infidelity of the heart...."