Audrey frowned. She did not quite like to say what she thought about either of those ladies.
“It’s very difficult to get ladies at all at this time of year.”
“Then I don’t want their husbands without them,” said Audrey sharply.
“You are difficult to please, Madame, to-night. Supposing that the poor fellows are in my own sad plight, and have no wives to bring?”
“Then I should like them to stay away,” retorted Audrey. “At any rate I won’t have my house used as if it were a gambling club.”
“But you used to play poker yourself with Gerard and me and my friends!” objected Mr. Candover rather piteously.
Her face quivered.
“That was very different. Between what I did when Gerard was with me and what I do now, there is, or there ought to be, a wide gulf. I can’t understand how a clever man like you can fail to see that.”
He looked down at her with an expression of infinite solicitude.
“Perhaps I do see it. Perhaps, seeing it clearly, I yet feel that the course I have proposed to you, the course of conciliating the people who may be of use to you, the making to yourself friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness in fact, is the best course.”