tested feebly: "I thought of
course I could take two Club tricks with my Ace and King.... That's why
I doubled the little slam, of course. And my first double simply meant
that I had one good suit.... I thought if you could bid at all that my
two doubletons--"

"Oh, what's the use?" Penny groaned. "But may I remind you that it is
_not_ bridge to lead from a Queen?... You led the deuce of Diamonds,
when of course the play, since you had seen the Ace in the dummy, was to
lead your Queen, forcing the Ace and leaving my King guarded to take a
trick later."

"But Karen didn't have any Diamonds at all," Carolyn defended herself.

"A secret you weren't in on when you led from your Queen," Penny
reminded her. "Oh, well! We'll pay up and shut up!" and she made a
pretense of totting up the score, while Karen, who had risen, stood over
her like a bird poised for flight.

At that instant Dexter Sprague began to advance into the room, Janet
Raymond at his side, her face flaming.

"Behave exactly as you did before!" Dundee commanded in a harsh whisper.
No time for coddling these people now!

Dexter Sprague's face took on a yellower tinge, but he obeyed.

"Greetings!" he called in the jaunty, over-cordial tones of a man who
knows himself not too welcome. "Where's Nita--and everybody? Isn't that
the cocktail shaker I hear?"

Having received no answer from anyone present, Sprague strolled through
the living room and on into the dining room, Janet following. Judge
Marshall had nodded stiffly, and John C. Drake had muttered the
semblance of a greeting.... Were they all overdoing it a bit--this
reacting of their hostility to the sole remaining outsider of their
compact little group?... Dundee stroked his chin thoughtfully.

But Penny was saying in her abrupt, husky voice: "Above the line, 1250;
below the line 720, making a total of 1970 on this hand, Karen."

"Won't Nita be glad?" Karen gasped, then began to run totteringly,
calling: "Nita! Nita!" But in the hall she collapsed, shuddering, crying
in a child's whimper: "No, no! I--can't--go in there--again!"

It was Dundee who reached her first--Dundee and not her outraged and
excited old husband.

"Mrs. Marshall--listen, please," he begged in a low voice, as he lifted
her so that her head rested against his arm. "You have been
splendid--wonderful! Please believe that I am truly sorry to distress
you so, and that very soon, I hope, you may go home and rest."

"I--can't bear