“Well, there it is! I must explain it to poor Eunice as well as I can. After all, you might take her to Monte and let her have a little gamble. I’ll give her a present. That’ll be better than nothing.”
“Thank you, Nina! But—well, the fact is——”
“Oh, do you want to go off on your own, too?” she asked rather sharply. “Well, I suppose it is dull here. Waldo and I are too conjugal, and Eunice—well, she’s a dear, but——”
“It’s not a bit dull here. It never could be where you are” (I meant that), “and anyhow old Waldo would be enough for me. And I’m not out for sprees, if that’s what you mean. But—may I smoke?”
“Of course! Don’t be silly!”
I began to smoke. She rose and came to the fireplace, where she stood with her arm resting on the mantelpiece, looking down at me, for I had sat down on one of her priceless chairs; it seemed rather a liberty, but I did it—a liberty with the chair, I mean, not with its owner.
She was looking very vexed; she hated her schemes to go awry. She had been kind to me; I liked her; and she was one of us now—the wife of a Rillington, though she bore another name. More than ever it seemed that I ought to play fair with her—for those reasons; also because it appeared likely that she was not meeting with fair play elsewhere—at all events, not with open dealing.
“I’m your guest,” I began, with some difficulty, “and your—well, and all the rest of it. And I want——”
“To do something that you think I mightn’t like a guest and friend of mine to do?”