Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/173

Rh She did not mean to marry Strefford—she had not even got as far as contemplating the possibility of a divorce—but it was undeniable that this sudden prospect of wealth and freedom was like fresh air in her lungs. She laughed again, but now without bitterness.

"Very good, then; we'll lunch together. But it's Streff I want to lunch with to-day."

"Ah, well," her companion agreed, "I rather think that for a tête-à-tête he's better company."

During their repast in a little restaurant over the Seine, where she insisted on the cheapest dishes because she was lunching with "Streff," he became again his old whimsical companionable self. Once or twice she tried to turn the talk to his altered future, and the obligations and interests that lay before him; but he shrugged away from the subject, questioning her instead about the motley company at Violet Melrose's, and fitting a droll or malicious anecdote to each of the people she named.

It was not till they had finished their coffee, and she was glancing at her watch with a vague notion of taking the next train, that he asked abruptly: "But what are you going to do? You can't stay forever at Violet's."

"Oh, no!" she cried with a shiver.

"Well, then—you've got some plan, I suppose?"

"Have I?" she wondered, jerked back into grim