If she scented irony she dissembled well. “Sacrifice is the woman’s part,” replied she sweetly.
“No doubt,” I went on, “you’re willing to stay here where you’re unhappy, and for my sake to jam the house night after night with people you care nothing about, and disport yourself in splendor to make the world envy me. I appreciate your nobility of character, but I positively can’t allow it.”
“We must do our duty,” said she. “Society expects certain things of us, and we must do them.”
“Not I, my dear. Open the house if you like. But I stick to my bachelor apartment.”
“Do you want me to go back to Europe?” said she with a fine show of quiet melancholy.
“I want you to do as you please,” was my answer.
“But unless I stay here, and you and I take our place in society together, I—” She hesitated. “Now that Margot is settled,” she went on desperately, “I am adrift. And—Godfrey, we can’t go on as we are.”
“I see that,” said I. “What do you propose?”
“To stay in New York,” replied she, with the promptness of the skilled fencer. “To stay here and be the mistress of your establishment.”
“My establishment is an apartment at Sherry’s.”