win. And I was beaten for lack of a six.

That she had grasped my explanation was quickly made plain. Actually
with some enthusiasm she showed me that the much-desired six of clubs
lay directly under the fatal seven.

"Just lay the seven over here," she began eagerly, "and there's your
black six ready for that horrid red five that's in the way--"

"But there isn't any 'over here,'" I exclaimed in some irritation.
"There can only be eight cards in a row--that would make nine."

"Yes, but then you could play up all the others so beautifully--just
see!"

"Is this a game," I asked, "or a child's crazy play?"

"Then it's an exceedingly stupid game if you can't do a little thing
like that when it's absolutely necessary. What is the _sense_ of it?"

Her eyes actually flashed into mine as she leaned at my side pointing
out this simple way to victory.

"What's the sense of any rules to any game on earth?" I retorted. "If I
hadn't learned to respect rules--if I hadn't learned to be thankful for
what the game allows me, however little it may be--" I paused, for the
water was deeper than I had thought.

"Well?"

"Well--well _then_--I shouldn't be as thankful as I am this instant
for--for many things that I can't have more of."

She straightened herself and favored me with a curious look that melted
at last into a puzzling smile.

"I don't understand you," she said. With a shade more of encouragement
in her voice I had been near to forgetting my honor as a truce-observing
enemy. I was grateful, indeed, afterwards, that her wish to understand
me was not sufficiently implied to bring me thus low.

"Neither do I understand the morbid psychology that finds satisfaction
in cheating at solitaire," I succeeded in saying. "I never can see how
they fix it up with themselves."

"I believe you think and talk a great deal of foolishness," said Miss
Kate, in tones of reproof; and with this she was off the porch before I
could rise.

She wore pink, with bits of blue spotting it in no systematic order that
I could discern, and a pink rose lay abashed in her hair.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ABDICATION OF THE BOSS

There is no need to conceal that I was by this time put to it for
matters to think upon not clearly related to myself; in other words for
matters extraneous to my neighbor's troublesome daughter. In sheer
self-defence was I driven to look abroad for interests that would
suffice without disquieting me. I was now c