sador, turning to Margaret, who rose
more slowly.

'Very badly. I would rather not.'

The diplomatist looked disappointed, and she noticed his expression,
and suspected that he would feel himself obliged to talk to her
instead of playing.

'I'm very fond of looking on,' she added quickly, 'if you will let me
sit beside you.'

They went back to the drawing-room, and presently the celebrated
Senorita da Cordova, who was more accustomed to being the centre of
interest than she realised, felt that she was nobody at all, as
she sat at her host's elbow watching the game through a cloud of
suffocating cigarette smoke. Even old Griggs, who detested cards,
had sacrificed himself in order to make up the second table. As for
Logotheti, he was too tactful to refuse a game in which every one knew
him to be a past master, in order to sit out and talk to her the whole
evening.

Margaret watched the players with some little interest at first. The
disagreeable Mr. Feist lost and became even more disagreeable, and
Margaret reflected that whatever he might be he was certainly not an
adventurer, for she had seen a good many of the class. The Ambassador
lost even more, but with the quiet indifference of a host who plays
because his guests like that form of amusement. Lady Maud and the
barrister were partners, and seemed to be winning a good deal; the
peer whose hobby was applied science revoked and did dreadful things
with his trumps, but nobody seemed to care in the least, except the
barrister, who was no respecter of persons, and had fought his way to
celebrity by terrorising juries and bullying the Bench.

At last Margaret let her head rest against the back of her comfortable
chair, and when she closed her eyes because the cigarette smoke made
them smart, she forgot to open them again, and went sound asleep; for
she was a healthy young person, and had eaten a good dinner, and on
evenings when she did not sing she was accustomed to go to bed at ten
o'clock, if not earlier.

No one even noticed that she was sleeping, and the game went on till
nearly midnight, when she was awakened by the sound of voices, and
sprang to her feet with the impression of having done something
terribly rude. Every one was standing, the smoke was as thick as ever,
and it was tempered by a smell of Scotch whisky. The men looked more
or less tired, but Lady Maud had not turned a hair.

The peer, holding a tall glass of weak whisky and soda in his hand,