She poured his tea but he did not drink it.
“I’ll have a glass of port,” was his reply. And then, “I had luck to-day. I won eleven thousand francs at baccarat ... playing with Henri and Posselt, the Russian.”
“Good,” was her reply, and again it was not what she might have said. This gambling worried her. It was not that he would bring them to poverty by it; that was almost impossible. But there was in her mind a feeling of disgust at the picture of men spending five hours of daylight in gambling. She tried to reproach herself by the thought that the idea was American and provincial. But she understood why his mother sometimes reproached him for not thinking more of his business. (Always he retorted that she liked business and he did not.)
There was silence and presently Sabine said, “I wonder, Dick, if we can’t do something about this house ... either take one of our own or clear out some of this rubbish.”
“It’s very comfortable.... There’s every luxury.”
She laughed. “Too much luxury.... I feel at times like a kept woman. Wolff had it for his mistress.... I’m sure he did.”
Callendar smiled. “That’s true,” he replied. “Some of it is very bad, but can’t we stick it out until spring? We’ll go to the country then or to England for a time.”
She had spoken of the matter before and the answer had always been the same. She now revived the discussion without hoping for any solution; she wanted to know whether he really liked it, whether he was really linked in some way to the extravagance of that awful boudoir. Watching him as she spoke, she believed that he did.
For a time they smoked in silence and then Sabine, crushing out the ash of her cigarette, observed with a magnificent air of indifference, “I wonder what has become of that American girl ... the musician. You remember, ‘Miss Tolliver’ was her name.”
She saw that he looked at her sharply and then, disarmed by her indifference, that his face assumed an expression which matched her own.