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 "It's very comfortable. . . . There's every luxury."

She laughed. "Too much luxury . . . I feel at times like a kept woman. Wolff had it for his mistress . . . I'm sure he did."

Callendar smiled. "That's true," he replied. "Some of it is very bad, but can't we stick it out until spring? We'll go to the country then or to England for a time."

She had spoken of the matter before and the answer had always been the same. She now revived the discussion without hoping for any solution; she wanted to know whether he really liked it, whether he was really linked in some way to the extravagance of that awful boudoir. Watching him as she spoke, she believed that he did.

For a time they smoked in silence and then Sabine, crushing out the ash of her cigarette, observed with a magnificent air of indifference, "I wonder what has become of that American girl . . . the musician. You remember, 'Miss Tolliver' was her name."

She saw that he looked at her sharply and then, disarmed by her indifference, that his face assumed an expression which matched her own.

"I don't know. I suppose she's still in New York. She was very talented."

"She planned to come to Paris some day. If she does, it would be a nice thing to do to look her up."

Her husband smiled before he answered her, a quiet amused smile such as he used to display when he caught his mother in some intricate feminine plot.

"I don't see why we should. She probably wouldn't like it. After all, it wouldn't be the same, would it?"

From this she could make nothing. All that he had said might mean anything at all. It seemed to her that the more she talked, the more confusing, the less clear everything became.

"I simply happened to think of her. She's a remarkable girl. She's had a struggle from the beginning." 