“Oceans of money; throws it away, but not fast enough to get rid of it.”
“He is what you say in English ... wild?”
“Well,” with mock gravity, “I shouldn’t like to be the tiger that crossed his path. Wild; that’s the word for it.”
“You are laughing. Ah, I know! I should say dissipated.”
“Courtlandt? Come, now, Celeste; does he look dissipated?”
“No-o.”
“He drinks when he chooses, he flirts with a pretty woman when he chooses, he smokes the finest tobacco there is when he chooses; and he gives them all up when he chooses. He is like the seasons; he comes and goes, and nobody can change his habits.”
“He has had no affair?”
“Why, Courtlandt hasn’t any heart. It’s a mechanical device to keep his blood in circulation; that’s all. I am the most intimate friend he has, and yet I know no more than you how he lives and where he goes.”
She let her hand fall from his shoulder. She was glad that he did not know.