"Yes; Alington."
"So did I. So did Alice, I think. What a bore it is! What is to be done?"
Jack fidgeted on his seat, lit a cigarette, took two whiffs at it, and threw it away.
"Perhaps we are wrong," he said. "Perhaps he didn't cheat."
Kit did not find it worth while to reply to so half-hearted a suggestion.
"It's damned awkward," he continued, abandoning this himself. "I don't know what to do. You see, Kit, what an awful position I am in. In any case, do let us have no scandal; that sort of thing has been tried once, and I don't know that it did any good to anybody."
"Of course we will have no scandal," said Kit quickly. "If there was a scandal, you would have to break with him, and pop go the gold mines as far as we are concerned."
Jack started. His thoughts had been so absolutely identical with what his wife said, that it was as if he had heard a sudden echo. And though the thoughts had been his own, and Kit had merely stated them, yet when she did so, so unreasonable is man, he felt inclined to repudiate what she said. The thing sounded crude when put like that. Kit saw him start, divined the cause with intuitive accuracy, and felt a sudden impatient anger at him. She hated hypocritical cowardice of this kind, for, having plenty of immoral courage herself, she had no sympathy with those who were defective in it. Jack, she knew very well, had no intention of breaking with Alington, because the latter had cheated at baccarat. Then, in Heaven's name, even if you are too squeamish to be frank yourself, try to make an effort not to wince when somebody else is.
"That is what a man calls his honour," she thought to herself with amused annoyance. "It is unlike Jack, though."
Meantime her quick brain was spinning threads like a spider.