"This is the first time I've been in your den, you know," she said abruptly. "Really, Maurice, you might have done better. I don't know how you've managed to put up with it so long."
"My dear Madeleine, do you think I could afford to live in a palace?"
"A palace?—absurd! You probably pay sixteen or seventeen marks for this hole. Well, I could have found you any number of better places for the same money—if you had come to me."
"You're very kind. But it has done me well enough."
"So it appears."
Sitting back, she looked round her, in the hope of picking up some neutral subject. "Are those your people?" she asked, and nodded at the photograph of a family-group, which stood on the top shelf of the bureau. "Three boys, are you not? You are like your mother," and she stared, with unfeigned curiosity, at the provincial figures, dressed out in their best coats and silks, and in heavy gold jewellery.
"Good God, Madeleine!" Maurice burst out at this, his loosely kept patience escaping him. "You didn't come here, I suppose, to remark on my family?"
"Well, I can't congratulate you on an improvement in your manners, since I saw you last."
"I am not aware of having changed."
"As well for you, perhaps. However, I'll tell you about myself, if it interests you." She turned her cool, judicial gaze on him again; and now she set before him her projects for the future. But though he kept his eyes fastened on her face, she saw that he was not listening to what she said, or, at most, that he only half heard it; for, when she ceased to speak, he did not notice her silence.