"Esmé Carteret"—Denise could see the big, heavy face thrust forward, as Sir Cyril lighted a cigarette—"Esmé Carteret is—er—pretty well off, isn't she, now that old Hugh's sons are dead?"
"She says she's racked by poverty." Denise flushed and faltered at this mistake.... "Oh, yes, of course, he makes her a splendid allowance; he must, or Esmé could not go about as she does."
"You're an extravagant little monkey yourself," said Sir Cyril, equably. "I asked Richards a fortnight ago what your balance was, and he said five hundred. Yesterday I was in at the bank and he told me it was only a hundred."
"I paid bills and things." Denise was not enjoying her drive. Supposing this inquisitive husband of hers looked at her bank-book and saw a cheque for two hundred to self. He would ask what she had spent it on; if she had gambled? He was curiously particular about high play, and women losing foolishly.
Denise thought that she would change her bank; then knew again that she would be forbidden to. Cyril was indulgent, almost absurdly generous, but master in his own home. And—if he ever guessed—ever knew—Denise grew cold with chill fear; for, combined with dread, her shallow nature clung now to the big man beside her; she had forgotten her follies in the past.
It is a shallow nature's joy, it has power to forget.
On several separate stages the dramas and comedies were being played out, but in one great last act they might all come together for the finale, and be called true tragedy then.
Sybil Chauntsey was playing her little part. Half frightened, half resentful, trying to call herself a baby, to tell her awakening woman's mind that Jimmie Gore Helmsley was only her pal, that she was a fool to think otherwise. And then the look in the black eyes, the little subtle caresses he had given her, gave this the lie.
Sybil would not go to a dance that evening; she pleaded headache, sat in her stuffy room, looking out across the hot slates, thinking.
She was afraid. Who would help her now to pay this man and so get out of his power? She had learned to dread him.