have; that is, Mrs. Gosnold would have paid for you. It was
up to her. She meant it that way. She was staking you against the
Pride person and myself; that's why you played together; if you and
she had lost, she'd have paid for both. So, you see, you may as well
quit trying to make me touch that money."

His sophistry baffled her. She shook her head, confused and a little
angry in defeat, liking him less than ever.

"Very well. But I don't feel right about it--and I think it most
unkind of you."

"Sorry. I only want to play the game as it lies, and this is my idea
of doing it."

There was a brief pause while Sally, at a loss, stared out over the
shining harbour, now more than ever sensible of the profound, peaceful
beauty of its azure floor over which bright sails swung and swayed
like slim, tall ladies treading a measure of some stately dance.

"If you ask my definition of unfair play," Trego volunteered, "it's
this present attitude of yours--forcing a quarrel on me and getting
mad because I stick up for my notion of a square deal!"

"Oh, you misunderstand!" she protested. "I'm only distressed by my
conception of what's wrong."

"It's the worst of gambling," he complained: "always winds up in some
sort of a row."

"Why gamble, then?"

"Why not? We've got to do something here to keep from yawning in one
another's faces."

"Is there so much of it going on all the time--gambling--here?"

"Oh, not a great deal. Not bad gambling, at least." He smiled faintly.
"Not what I call gambling. But I was bred on strong meat--in mining
camps--where my father made his money. There men gambled with their
lives. Here--_hmp!_" He grunted amusedly. "It's just enough like the
real thing to make a fellow restless. Sometimes I wish the old man
hadn't struck it quite so rich. If he hadn't, we'd both be happier. As
it is, he fluffs around, making a pest of himself in Wall Street
because he thinks it's the proper thing. And here am I, instead of
earning dividends on what little knowledge I do happen to possess,
sticking round with a set of idle egoists, simply because the old
man's got his heart set on his son being in society! He won't be happy
till he sees me married to one of these--er--women. Sometimes. . ."

Morosely he ruminated on the suppressed adjective for a moment.
"Sometimes I feel it coming over me that the governor's liable to be
happy, according to his lights, considerably quicker than I am."

CHAPTER VIII