'
'I am sure you do.'
'I'm quite certain I do. I know I never mean harm. But how are we women
expected to behave, then? Oh, I'm unhappy, I am.'
'You must abstain from playing.'
'It's that! I've lost my money--I forgot. And I shall have to confess
it to my duke, though he warned me. Old men hold their fingers up--so!
One finger: and you never forget the sight of it, never. It's a round
finger, like the handle of a jug, and won't point at you when they're
lecturing, and the skin's like an old coat on gaffer's shoulders--or,
Chloe! just like, when you look at the nail, a rumpled counterpane up to
the face of a corpse. I declare, it's just like! I feel as if I didn't
a bit mind talking of corpses tonight. And my money's gone, and I don't
much mind. I'm a wild girl again, handsomer than when that----he is a
dear, kind, good old nobleman, with his funny old finger: "Susan!
Susan!" I'm no worse than others. Everybody plays here; everybody
superior. Why, you have played, Chloe.'
'Never!'
'I've heard you say you played once, and a bigger stake it was, you said,
than anybody ever did play.'
'Not money.'
'What then?'
'My life.'
'Goodness--yes! I understand. I understand everything to-night-men too.
So you did!--They're not so shamefully wicked, Chloe. Because I can't
see the wrong of human nature--if we're discreet, I mean. Now and then a
country dance and a game, and home to bed and dreams.
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