"Do you want to get rid of me, Cora?"
"Sometimes. Do you know, there are moments when I almost make up my mind to go headlong to the devil,—when I think it is the best thing to be done. It's a hard thing for a woman to do, because she has to undergo so much obloquy before she gets used to it. A man can take to drinking, and gambling and all the rest of it, and nobody despises him a bit. The domestic old fogies give him lectures if they can catch him, but he isn't fool enough for that. All he wants is money, and he goes away and has his fling. Now I have plenty of money,—or, at any rate, I had,—and I never got my fling yet. I do feel so tempted to rebel, and go ahead, and care for nothing."
"Throwing one piece on to the table wouldn't satisfy that longing."
"You think I should be like the wild beast that has tasted blood, and can't be controlled. Look at all these people here. There are husbands gambling, and their wives don't know it; and wives gambling, and their husbands don't know it. I wonder whether Plantagenet ever has a fling? What a joke it would be to come and catch him!"
"I don't think you need be afraid."
"Afraid! I should like him all the better for it. If he came to me, some morning, and told me that he had lost a hundred thousand pounds, I should be so much more at my ease with him."
"You have no chance in that direction, I'm quite sure."
"None the least. He'd make a calculation that the chances were nine to seven against him, and then the speculation would seem to him to be madness."
"I don't suppose he'd wish to try, even though he were sure of winning."
"Of course not. It would be a very vulgar kind of thing then. Look,—there's an opening there. I'll just put on one napoleon."