"What else—our policy is one of drifting."
"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."
"It is 'Jack' in the compact."
She sighed.
"Alas, this compact reads only one way. It means that you give and I receive. Will you—will you believe, in the future, that despair alone could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"
"No," he said sturdily.
"No? That is the only unkind thing you have said."
"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair. But—here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages. I hear thuds in the next room."
And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's voice reached them sharply from the corridor:
"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box! Do you think you are an express man, or what?"