"Are you going to play bridge?" Nina asked, feeling that the answer was obvious.
But the Contessa Masco, taking her cognac at a swallow, glanced at Tornik with a laugh. "Oh, lord, no! Nothing so dull, I hope, in this house!"
Derby joined Nina, and she looked up at him with pride. "I am glad you are here to-night; I seem to be especially glad——" She broke off, but her intonation conveyed unspoken thoughts.
Derby's eyes kindled. "Why especially? Have you a particular reason, really?" His heart beat so hard, because of the sweetness in her expression, that it seemed to him she must hear it pounding, that she must look through the mask he wore, and read his love for her.
But his mask was impenetrable, and Nina answered lightly: "I wonder which reason you would like me to give? I wonder if it would make any real difference to you whether I said just glad—or glad because of something?"
He forced himself to speak with a stolidity that walled in securely his threatening emotions. "I am not a bit good at guessing the meaning of sentences that have no direct statement in them. You see, they are not the kind my grammar book taught me!"
Nina smiled. "You like a regular, straight-out, simple sentence with one subject and one predicate, don't you?"
"That's it! And as few qualifying clauses as possible."
"And as your speech is, so are your actions. No time for trivialities. Big, serious things!" To her surprise she felt a sharp pain in her throat.
"What an old bear I must seem to you——" His sentence broke off as the Countess Masco interrupted them.