"Of course I want to keep it intact. I wouldn't for worlds let anything come between us, certainly not bridge." She meditated. "I suppose I do play rather a lot. There's nothing else to do, you see, and you get carried away." "I hope, my dear, you don't play for money." "Oh, well, it isn't much fun for the others if we don't." "You don't play high, I hope?" "What do you call high?" "Well, breaking into pound notes." "Pound notes! Penny points--well, ten shillings is the very highest stake when we're reckless and going it. Besides, I always play against Markham and Hawtrey, because I know _they_ won't be hard on me if I lose." "Now, _that's_ what I don't like. I'd a thousand times rather pay your gambling debts than have you putting yourself under an obligation to those men." He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear to think that Elise could bear it. "You should have come to me," he said. "I have come to you, haven't I?" She thought of the five hundred pounds. He thought of them too. "Ah, that's different. Now, about these debts to Markham and Hawtrey. How much do they come to--about?" "Oh, a five-pound note would cover all of it. But I shall only be in debt to you." "We'll say nothing about that. If I pay it, Elise, will you promise me you'll never play higher than penny points again?" "It's too angelic of you, really." He smiled. He liked paying her gambling debts. He liked the power it gave him over her. He liked to think that he could make her promise. He liked to be told he was angelic. It was all very cheap at five pounds, and it would enable him to refuse the five hundred with a better grace. "Come, on your word of honour, only penny points." "On my word of honour.... But, oh, I don't think I can take it." She thought of the five hundred. When you wanted five hundred it was pretty rotten to be put off with a fiver. "If you can take it from Hawtrey and Markham--" "That's it. I _can't_ take it from Markham. I haven't done that. I can't do it." "Well, Hawtrey then." "Hawtrey's different" "Why is he different?" A faint suspicion, relating to Markham, troubled him, and not for the first time. "Well, you see, he's a middle-aged married man. He might be my uncle." He thought: "And Markham--_he_ might be--" But Elise was not in love with the fellow. No, no. He was sure of Elise; he knew the symptoms; you couldn't mistake them. But she might marry Markham, all the same. Out of boredom, out of uncertainty, out of desperation. He was not going to let that happen; he would make it impossible; he would give Elise the certainty she wanted now. "You said _I_ was different." Playful reproach. But she would understand. "So you are. You're a married man, too, aren't you?" "I thought we'd agreed to forget it." "Forget it? Forget Mrs. Waddington?" "Yes, forget her. You knew me long before you knew Fanny. What has she got to do with you and me?" "Just this, that she's the only woman in the county who'll know _me_."