I am a champion golfer. [She says with a trace of a smile and some measure of pride, although she hadn't practiced the sport in years, her hands long having lost their strength and grip, too delicate to hold chrome clubs for hours on end beneath the unforgiving sun now.]

There's the radio. I drink, I dance, I wait for company to visit. [Saying it now, she is acutely aware of how lonely it must sound, isolated in white rooms with only servants for company, and she hastens to add:]

If they do visit, we have a marvelous time. It's usually a—a very nice time.

[But somehow, her efforts to sound impressive just feel all the more desperate to endear to him. People don't ask what she does, they just assume she must have a bursting agenda. With all the money in the world, who cares for what she occupies her time with? She is the wife of a man of prestige and pride, the friend of celebrities, the center of a hive of gossip. People just assume that she is naturally joyous, with possessions replacing human interaction. Who needs the touch of a lover or the conversation of a close companion when there are so many incessant things to purchase?]

What about when you're not working?

[She turns the topic to him, anything to keep the air light between them.]