Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/315

 the value of money. It's lucky she's always had so much. She met the gigolo at Nina de Paulhac's."

The voice of the admiral sounded suddenly gruff and ill-tempered. "I could never see why Nina has such people about."

"She has a list of them, for dances and week-ends. When a woman gets to be Nina's age, young men don't flock about for love."

There was a pause and Father d'Astier was aware that he must be very still lest they discover that he was sitting there, for he knew that two men will gossip and say things of a woman that they would not say if a third were present. Honor to which he himself had sacrificed so much was, he thought, an artificial thing, like the clothes one put on before appearing in public. He found himself praying that they would not speak of her again. And then the voice of Faustino's cousin.

"They say that Oreste Fonterrabia went away on her account."

"Yes, she was always reluctant to give up love." A sigh. "But a magnificent woman."

"We must remember what she was."

"I am glad to have news of her. I haven't seen her in years."

And then the cracked voice of the childish old duke moving toward them. "I think, gentlemen, that we will join the ladies."

When they had gone Father d'Astier replaced the volume of Horace, came out from his hiding place and fixing his mouth into a worldly smile went through the big door into the drawing-room where the daughter of Admiral Burnham who was the half