"You!" she said carelessly. "You've made a night of it, my friend."
"I have been home for hours," he said coldly.
"Tiens! Who knows!" She went to a table, poured out brandy and opened a bottle of Perrier. "Who knows, my Bertie. I saw you with Her at the theatre."
He sprang up, white, angry, to find the words wither on his lips. How could he deny, refute, with to-morrow—nay, to-day—before him? He sat down again, wearily, as a man does who is very tired.
"Look here, Bertie." Esmé lighted the gas fire, flung off her cloak; her hair was tossed, her thin arms and neck bared to the bounds of decency, her dress was a sheath outlining each slender limb. "Look here!" she said. "You're sick of me. Let's have done with it. I'll meet you half-way."
"What do you mean?" he stammered.
"Mean?" She lighted a cigarette, then took a little tablet from a box and dropped one into her glass. "This is Nervine—Steadier—what you like," she mocked, "and really morphia. My nerves have gone to pieces. I mean—go away; refuse to come back; amuse yourself with the fair Estelle, and I'll divorce you. Frank Dravelling would marry me," she said eagerly.
Bertie gave no answer.
"And I'm sick of this. He's a bleating, mawkish calf, but he's got fifteen thousand a year for me to spend, and if I don't, a dozen other women will."
Cold disgust gagged him. Had she no sense of decent feeling, to talk like this? Was the girl he had married dead?