The servants brought in a big card
table.
"Are you going to play bridge?" Nina asked, feeling that the answer was
obvious.
But the Contessa Masco, taking her cognac at a swallow, glanced at
Tornik with a laugh. "Oh, lord, no! Nothing so dull, I hope, in this
house!"
Derby joined Nina, and she looked up at him with pride. "I am glad you
are here to-night; I seem to be especially glad----" She broke off, but
her intonation conveyed unspoken thoughts.
Derby's eyes kindled. "Why especially? Have you a particular reason,
really?" His heart beat so hard, because of the sweetness in her
expression, that it seemed to him she must hear it pounding, that she
must look through the mask he wore, and read his love for her.
But his mask was impenetrable, and Nina answered lightly: "I wonder
which reason you would like me to give? I wonder if it would make any
real difference to you whether I said just _glad_--or glad because of
something?"
He forced himself to speak with a stolidity that walled in securely his
threatening emotions. "I am not a bit good at guessing the meaning of
sentences that have no direct statement in them. You see, they are not
the kind my grammar book taught me!"
Nina smiled. "You like a regular, straight-out, simple sentence with one
subject and one predicate, don't you?"
"That's it! And as few qualifying clauses as possible.
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