A waiter approached. The room was long, dark, narrow, slovenly, spaced with tables on which were maculate cloths and lamps with faded shades. Greasily the waiter produced the bill.
"Bushels!" she appetisingly repeated.
Cassy paid. The waiter slouched away.
"You will drive through life in a hundred horsepower car and be fined for speeding. The papers will say: 'Mrs. Pal——'"
"What did he pay you to tell me that?" Cassy exploded at her.
Unruffled by the shot, which was part and parcel of the job, and realising that any denial would only confirm what at most could be but a suspicion, the former diva fingered her pearls and assumed an air of innocence.
But already Cassy had covered her with her blotting-paper look. "As if I cared!"
"Dearie, he did pay me. He paid me the compliment of supposing that I take an interest in you. But he said nothing except what I said he said. He said if he got down on his knees you would turn your back on him."
"Then he is cleverer than he looks."
"Well, anyway, he is clever enough to have bushels of money and that is the greatest cleverness there is."