"Because we went to his studio," said Guilder. "Now about letting
the contracts--"
"Were you at Drene's studio?"
"Yes. He's doing the groups for the new opera for us."
Quair, watching Graylock, was seized with a malicious impulse: "Neat little skirt he has up there--that White girl," he remarked,
seating himself on Graylock's polished table.
A dull flush stained Graylock's cheekbones, and his keen eyes turned
on Quair. The latter lighted a cigarette, expelled the smoke in two
thin streams from his abnormally narrow nostrils.
"Some skirt," he repeated. "And it looks as though old Drene had
her number--"
Guilder's level voice interrupted: "The contracts are ready to be--"
But Graylock, not heeding, and perhaps not hearing, and looking all
the time at Quair, said slowly: "Drene isn't that kind. . . . Is he?"
"Our kind, you mean?" inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under
flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with
Graylock. Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was
not sufficient. He desired that Graylock should feel the gaff.
"Drene," he said, "is one of those fussers who jellify when hurled
on their necks--the kind that ask that kind of girl to marry them
after she's turned down everything else they suggest."
Graylock's square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow
even paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man's
record with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which
connected him so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg
unconcernedly, where it dangled over the table's edge, and smiled
frankly and knowingly upon Graylock: "There's always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn't
on the breakfast table. When you and I are ready to quit, Graylock,
Providence has created a species of man who settles our bills."
He threw back his head, inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, sent two
thin streams through his nose.
"Maybe Drene may marry her himself. But--I don't believe he'll have
to. . . . Now, about those contracts--" he affected a yawn, "--go on
and tell him, Guilder," he added, his words distorted by another
yawn.
He stepped down to the floor from his perch on the table, stretched
his arms, looking affably all the while at Graylock, who had never
moved a muscle.
"I believe you had a run-in with that Cecile girl once, didn't you,
Graylock? Like the rest of us, eh? Oh, well--my hat off to old Drene
if he wins out. I hold no malice. After all, Graylock, what's a
woman between friends?"