"Japonette, dear, I’m as rotten at cards as I am dancing. I won’t permit indiscreet infatuation to interfere with your Bridge.... And, by the way, in this sort of a house the chances are they’ll play for stakes—probably high stakes. My limit is a cent a point—or was in days of affluence—but our host will scarcely expect us to risk our salaries, I fancy. So even if you have no objection to playing for stakes—which probably, however, you have—you need not feel obliged to. Our duties here do not include losing money to Mr. Rivett’s assorted guests, you know. Feel perfectly at liberty to let the table carry you and Silvette. "Shall I wait and go down with you both? "J.E." She read the note; then handed it silently to Silvette, who read it also in silence. "You see," said Diana, "it’s exactly what I told you. He doesn’t wish us to play for stakes." "He says nothing here about his wishes.... Besides, it would be an impertinence for him to make any such suggestion to either you or me." "His attitude is plain enough—if you think it impertinent." "I don’t think it is. He indicates that he supposes we do not play for stakes, and adds that, anyway, we need not if we don’t wish to. That is all the note expresses. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it?" Diana shook her disheveled head, seated herself and wrote a hasty answer, sending it away by the valet, who was waiting outside the door. "Don’t wait for us; we’re not hooked up yet. We’re quite accustomed to play for stakes, you funny boy, so that need cause you no uneasiness.... And please don’t forget to ask me, if they dance." Edgerton stood thinking for a moment before his fireplace after reading the missive; then struck a match and lit the two notes, holding them together until almost consumed, and lingered still to watch the edge of yellow flame on the hearth licking up the remaining margins of the paper. Then he went downstairs and into a green and gold drawing-room, where his hostess received him shyly, almost timidly—a small gray-haired woman all over jewels whose thin little hand trembled slightly in his. It was a frail hand, fragile of bone, yet never the hand of generations of leisure, for the joints were hard and accented, and the fingers rather worn than thin—as though once not unaccustomed to household labor; and, without knowing just why, he retained the diamond-laden hand in his firm, warm clasp for a moment as though to reassure her. "It is nice of you to ask us," he said gently. "You have made everything very easy and comfortable for us. My cousins will be down in a few moments; they asked me to come first." The little gray woman looked up into his pleasant, well-cut face as though confused; he smiled down at her, still retaining her hand.