“I take the occasional puff. Never got addicted.”
Joy shook her head. “They still can kill you though.”
“Skeffington’s back!” A man William’s age stepped up to him with an outreached hand. “You’re back!”
William gladly shook his hand. “Well hello there, Charles.”
“Hello, Old Man. Don’t you look prosperous.”
“I can’t complain.”
“Don’t we all wish we could say that. But PR never goes out of fashion, does it?”
“Never.”
“My family went into the wrong profession. That’s the problem.”
William laughed. “Meet my girlfriend, Joy Johnson. Joy, this is my old friend Charles.”
“Nice to meet you, Charles.” Joy extended her hand to him.
“Nice to meet you too,” Charles said as they shook. But his attention was still on William. “Did you just say what I thought you just said?”
William smiled. “Yes. You heard me accurately. She’s my lady.”
“Your ladyfriend?”
“No.My lady.”
Charles stared at him again.
William took a puff on his cigar. Then called him out for the outsize staring. “Oh come on, old chap. It’s notthatirregular.”
“For you? Quite irregular. It is quite the switch! But a good thing in my view.”
William nodded. “Thank you.”
“However, there are quite a few ladies in this club that shall be very disappointed.”
William said nothing. Joy felt it was highly inappropriate herself for that man to keep making such a to-do about it.
“But who am I to judge?”
“A judge.”
“Oh I am, aren’t I?” They both laughed.
“So how have you been?” Willam decided to ask.
“That’s a story I shall not tell. What about you? I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.”
“Neither I you,” William said. “We’ve been missing each other.”
“Business must be good for you to be absent so much.”
“It is good. It couldn’t be better.”
“At least one of us are sailing calm seas. But the wine industry? Forget about it.”
