Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/284

274 been, as it were, done up to match his clothes, as though a sort of moral cosmetic had made him pinker, shinier and sprightlier without really rejuvenating him. A thin veil of high spirits had merely been drawn over his face, as the shining strands of hair were skilfullyskillfully [sic] brushed over his baldness.

"Here! Carte des vins, waiter! What champagne, Susy?" He chose, fastidiously, the best the cellar could produce, grumbling a little at the bourgeois character of the dishes. "Capital food of its kind, no doubt, but coarsish, don't you think? Well, I don't mind it's rather a jolly change from the Luxe cooking. A new sensation—I'm all for new sensations, ain't you, my dear?" He re-filled their champagne glasses, flung an arm sideways over his chair, and smiled at her with a foggy benevolence.

As the champagne flowed his confidences flowed with it.

"Suppose you know what I'm here for—this divorce business? We wanted to settle it quietly without a fuss, and of course Paris is the best place for that sort of job. Live and let live; no questions asked. None of your dirty newspapers. Great country, this. No hypocrisy they understand Life over here!"

Susy gazed and listened. She remembered that people had thought Nelson would make a row when he found out. He had always been addicted to truculent anecdotes about unfaithful wives, and