osophy under defeat, respect for the inevitable
and a cheerful manipulation of such trifling good fortune as may
befall--instead of that wild, womanish demand for all or nothing--has
yet to be invented. I predict of this game, moreover, if ever it be
found, that it will be a game at which two, at least, must play. Rarely
have I known a woman, however rigid her integrity otherwise, who would
not brazenly amend or even repeal utterly those decrees of Fate which
are symbolized by the game. She desires intensely to win, and she will
not be above shifting a card or two in contravention of the known rules.
Far am I from intimating that this puts upon her the stigma of moral
delinquency. It is mere testimony, rather, to her astounding capacity
for self-deception. And this I cannot believe to be other than gracious
of influence upon the intricate muddle of human association.

Miss Kate was finely the woman at those times when she deigned for a ten
minutes to overlook my playing of the game. Before I had half finished,
on the first occasion, she had mastered its simple mechanism; and before
I had quite finished she sought to practise upon it those methods of the
world woman in games of solitaire. She would calmly have placed a black
nine on a black ten.

"But the colors must alternate," I protested, thinking she had forgotten
this important rule.

"Of course--I know that perfectly well--but look what a fine lot of
cards that would give you. There's a deuce of hearts you could play up
and a three of spades, and then you could go back to crossing the colors
again, right away, you know, and you'd have that whole line running up
to the king ready to put into that space."

I looked at her, as she would have glided brazenly over that false play
to rejoice in the true plays it permitted. But I did not speak. There
are times, indeed, when we most honor the tongue of Shakspere by
silence; emergencies to which words are so inadequate that to attempt to
use them were to degrade the whole language.

At the last I was brought face to face with a most intricately planned
defeat; a defeat insured by one spot on a card. Had the obstructive card
been a six-spot of clubs instead of a seven-spot, victory was mine. I
pointed this out to Miss Kate, who had declined a chair at the table and
had chosen to stand beside my own. I showed her the series of plays
which, but for that seven-spot, would put the kings in their places at
the top and let me