Again she felt a twinge of embarrassment.  “Oh, French people—­I mean my husband’s kind—­always spend a part of the year on their estates.”

“But not this part, do they?  Why, everything’s humming up there now.  I was dining at the Nouveau Luxe last night with the Driscolls and Shallums and Mrs. Rolliver, and all your old crowd were there whooping things up.”

The Driscolls and Shallums and Mrs. Rolliver!  How carelessly he reeled off their names!  One could see from his tone that he was one of them and wanted her to know it.  And nothing could have given her a completer sense of his achievement—­of the number of millions he must be worth.  It must have come about very recently, yet he was already at ease in his new honours—­he had the metropolitan tone.  While she examined him with these thoughts in her mind she was aware of his giving her as close a scrutiny.  “But I suppose you’ve got your own crowd now,” he continued; “you always were a lap ahead of me.”  He sent his glance down the lordly length of the room.  “It’s sorter funny to see you in this kind of place; but you look it—­you always do look it!”

She laughed.  “So do you—­I was just thinking it!” Their eyes met.  “I suppose you must be awfully rich.”

He laughed too, holding her eyes.  “Oh, out of sight!  The Consolidation set me on my feet.  I own pretty near the whole of Apex.  I came down to buy these tapestries for my private car.”

The familiar accent of hyperbole exhilarated her.  “I don’t suppose I could stop you if you really wanted them!”

“Nobody can stop me now if I want anything.”

They were looking at each other with challenge and complicity in their eyes.  His voice, his look, all the loud confident vigorous things he embodied and expressed, set her blood beating with curiosity.  “I didn’t know you and Rolliver were friends,” she said.

“Oh Jim—­” his accent verged on the protective.  “Old Jim’s all right.  He’s in Congress now.  I’ve got to have somebody up in Washington.”  He had thrust his hands in his pockets, and with his head thrown back and his lips shaped to the familiar noiseless whistle, was looking slowly and discerningly about him.

Presently his eyes reverted to her face.  “So this is what I helped you to get,” he said.  “I’ve always meant to run over some day and take a look.  What is it they call you—­a Marquise?”

She paled a little, and then flushed again.  “What made you do it?” she broke out abruptly.  “I’ve often wondered.”

He laughed.  “What—­lend you a hand?  Why, my business instinct, I suppose.  I saw you were in a tight place that time I ran across you in Paris—­and I hadn’t any grudge against you.  Fact is, I’ve never had the time to nurse old scores, and if you neglect ’em they die off like gold-fish.”  He was still composedly regarding her.  “It’s funny to think of your having settled down to this kind of life; I hope you’ve got what you wanted.  This is a great place you live in.”