He winced as she jabbed surely at his one weak point—the weakness she knew so well; her knowledge of it had given her the courage to attack him. And she knew also that his one belief in her, his one use for her, was her skill as a social maneuverer.
“You’ll do whatever is necessary,” she went on. “I can’t understand why you were so opposed to her marrying. He’s young, but famous already. He’ll be a help.”
A long pause. Then: “Yes, he can paint,” said Richmond absently, a queer look in his usually hard and wicked eyes.
“Of course he can. D’Artois told us so. I’ll go ask him to dinner on my way home. If he accepts I’ll telephone Beatrice to come down.”
“Yes—that’s a good idea—excellent,” said Richmond. “I want to get this thing settled. It has unfitted me for business. A few weeks more of it and I’ll go to pieces. Do whatever you like. I don’t care, so long as you settle things.” And he took up his papers to indicate that he had no more time to waste.
“I hope this will be a lesson to you,” said she. “Next time any trouble comes with the children you’d better leave it to me.”
Richmond muttered something into his papers. Mrs. Richmond issued forth in dignity and in triumph. No one, viewing her cold and haughty face, her beautiful, expensive toilet, her air throughout of the story-book aristocrat, would have believed her capable of participating in such a scene as she and her husband had just enacted. She was secure from suspicion of such vulgarities—secure behind the glamour of wealth and fashion that veils the Richmond kind of sordid lives and the sordid pursuits that engross them.
When Mrs. Richmond’s auto stopped before Roger Wade’s gate she saw him reading behind the leafy screen of the front veranda. She waited and watched a moment or so, but he did not glance up.
“Give the horn a squeeze or so,” said she to the chauffeur.