Twilight Sleep
angelo's debts—but with whose money? And why?
"I'm sure Dexter wants to do all he can to help you about Michelangelo—we both do. But—"
Pauline's brain was whirling; she found it impossible to go on. She knew by heart the extent of Michelangelo's debts. Amalasuntha took care that everyone did. She seemed to feel a sort of fatuous pride in their enormity, and was always dinning it into her cousin's ears. Dexter, if he had really made such a promise, must have made it in his wife's name; and to do so without consulting her was so unlike him that the idea deepened her bewilderment.
"Are you sure? I'm sorry, Amalasuntha—but this comes as a surprise. . . Dexter and I were to talk the matter over . . . to see what could be done. . ."
"Darling, it's so like you to belittle your own generosity—you always do! And so does Dexter. But in this case—well, the cable's gone; so why deny it?" triumphed the Marchesa.
When Maisie Bruss returned, Pauline was still sitting with an idle pencil before the pile of bills and estimates. She fixed an unseeing eye on her secretary. "These things will have to wait. I'm dreadfully tired, I don't know why. But I'll go over them all early tomorrow, before you come; and—Maisie—I hate to ask it; but do you think you could get here by eight o'clock instead of nine?
