"Do you think it's the best way to spend that much money?" she shot at him suddenly, her brows knitted. It surprised him, but he answered promptly:
"I know of none better."
She stared at him and through him for a moment. Then her mood seemed to change. She laughed metallically, and reaching lazily toward a silver box at her elbow, selected a cigarette and lighted it. It was a deliberate thrust. Always hitherto she had refrained from such indulgence before him.
"Come, Arnold," she said cruelly. "You don't honestly believe that, do you?"
The insolence of her pose, one knee over the other, the cigarette in her hand, the challenging note in her voice, hurt him more than her previous indifference.
"I don't think I can discuss that," he said, rather loftily.
Her smile faded. "Well, you ought to discuss it. You've got to defend it. You've got to prove it. Don't be absurd, Arnold."
He was dumfounded. It was so unlike her. He had never seen her in such a mood. But he ascribed it to the incomprehensible nature of womankind. He knew from the fiction he had read that women do very irrational things, frequently, if not as a general rule, saying the precise opposite of their meaning. He tried to change the subject. But to his surprise she refused to change with him.
"Don't people make you defend your position?" she persisted.
"No one has."