His face was whitening with disapproval, and she burst, as she caught a glimpse of it, into a gust of laughter.
“Shocking, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s a matter of taste,” he remarked, with a further twist of his nose, to indicate that its flavor, at least in his mouth, was nasty. It is never the hangman can joke when he is hung.
She looked at him, with her head tilted over her plate, and a slow, broad smile.
“You’ll do!” she said. “But you know even your eight pearls won’t run to quite all that—every time.”
He moved impatiently on his chair as she raised her champagne glass and peered mockingly at him across its yellow brim.
She set it down with a laugh.
“My!” she exclaimed; “what a row they are making upstairs! Come along, I believe they are dancing.”
She went up three steps at a time, but Veynes followed more slowly. He feared he was sickening for the fever.