t once."

"You might try not to make it harder for me."

Again had I been a third person of fair discernment, I believe I should
have sworn that I caught in her eyes a gleam of hardened, relentless
determination; but she only pointed to a four of hearts which I was
neglecting to play up.

"Why not play the game to win?" she asked, and there was that in her
voice which was like to undo me--a tone and the merest fanning of my
face by her loose sleeve as she pointed to the card.

Suddenly I knew that honor was not in me. She walked within my lines in
imminent peril of the deadliest character. But there was no sign of fear
in the look she held me with, and I knew she had not sensed her danger.

"You should play your stupid game to win," she repeated terribly. "You
are too ingenious at finding balm in defeat." That little golden
roughness in her voice seemed to grate on my bared heart. I left her
eyes with a last desperate appeal to the game. My hand shook as it laid
down the final eight cards.

"Have I ever had any reason to think I could win?" I found I could ask
this if I kept my eyes upon the cards.

She laughed a curious, almost silent, confidential little laugh, through
which a sigh of despair seemed to breathe.

I looked quickly up, but again there was that strange gleam in her eyes,
a gleam of sternest resolve I should have called it under other
circumstances.

"You see!" I exclaimed, pointing with a trembling but triumphant finger
at the cards. "You see! I am beaten now, in this game that seemed easy
up to the very last moment. What could I hope for in a game where the
cards fell wretchedly from the very start? If I hoped now, I'd be a
hopeless fool, indeed!"

[Illustration: "THAT WILL DO," I SAID SEVERELY. "REMEMBER, THERE IS A
GENTLEMAN PRESENT."]

"Are you sure you know how to play this game?"

There was a sort of finality in her words that sickened me.

"I have abided always by the rules," I answered doggedly, "and I do know
the rules. Look--this game is neatly blocked by one little four-spot on
that queen. If that queen were free, I could finish everything."

"Oh, oh--I've told you it's a stupid game with stupid rules--and it
makes its players--" She did not complete that, but went about on
another tack--with the danger note in her voice. "Just now I overheard
your caller say a thing--"

"Ah, I feared you overheard."

The arrogance of the gesture with which she interrupted me was splendid.