“For the wife of one in my position, yes.”
“I didn’t ask you that. Is she extravagant, for herself as she is?”
Against his will the first suggestion of color showed on Randall’s face.
“I fail to see the distinction,” he said.
“In other words,” remorselessly, “you question my right to wield the probe. You prefer not to be hurt even to effect a cure.”
“No, I repeat that I’m not a cad. Besides, I’ve told you I trust you. When a woman marries a man, though, with her eyes open—” He caught himself. “Pardon me, I’m ashamed 207 to have said that. To answer your question: no; Margery wasn’t extravagant in the least by her standard.”
“You mean by ‘her standard,’” apparently Roberts had heard only the last sentence, “the habit and experience of her whole life, of twenty-two years of precedent when you married her.”
“Yes.”
“And of generations of inheritance back of that. The Coopers are an old stock and have always been moderately wealthy, have they not?”
“Yes, back as far as the record goes.”