The one repeated word, weighted by disgust, was the whole of his denial.
“Whence—where—how, then, a divorce, without cause? Are we not citizens of the supposedly respectable commonwealth of New York?”
“There is Reno.”
“Reno!” As if from force of her emphasis, Catherine sprang up from her lounge, crossed the room and faced him. “So you’ve been calculating on Reno? A nice, chivalrous plan—for me to endure such tedium and long-suffering to oblige you with a divorce! Four days’ train travel from New York and six months’ residence in a Wild West town in the kind of hotel that has only one bath to a floor and wouldn’t know what you meant by à la carte if you spelled it backward and translated it into Indian. My dear husband, what could you offer that would repay me for one of those awful exiles in Nevada’s make-believe metropolis?”
“What sum has d’Elie named?”
“John! Are you trying to insult me?”
“No, Catherine. I am trying to settle with you.”
For a tight-strung moment man and wife regarded each the other, he not unkindly, she with twisting lips. The next, she turned and herself began to glide from object to object of the room, as if she too were strange to them. When she again stopped before him, her face had beautified. She laid a hand upon his arm.
“Tell me, why a divorce, dear?”
“Why not a divorce?” His eyes held forbiddingly on the clutch of her polish-pointed fingers. “Let’s not go into unnecessary explanations. I understand something of your ambitions and shall be glad to help you achieve them. You will wear a title well—one thing that I could never give you. And you’ll do better, I am sure, with a man whose devotion is for hire.”