Mary Ambrey had been sitting next to me, but she gave me a little nod presently, and changed her place, and went to talk to Mrs. Leeds. She has out-of-date ideas of the courtesy due to a hostess from a guest, which are not shared by her children. Then Mrs. Leeds added the final touch to her lavish entertainment, and produced, with the air of a benevolent conjuror, a couple of tooled-leather boxes containing cards and bridge markers. “I thought it’d be a shame to waste the afternoon,” she said simply, clearing a space for a thin carriage rug to cover the purple heather, and setting her back against a small, shimmering silver birch. “Upon my word, that’s a great idea,” said General Kendal, brightening for the first time since the expedition had started. “Hector!” “Hello!” said Leeds, turning half round. “Oh, I see--you want to build card-houses, do you? Well, Miss Sallie, the end of it was that these perishers, never having seen anyone like me before, absolutely knuckled under. Most ridiculous thing you ever saw. Why, they’d have made me crowned king over them if I’d allowed it. You must let me tell you the end of the yarn another day--that is, if I haven’t been boring you stiff.” As he did not wait to hear Sallie’s answer, one supposes that Leeds was happily confident as to its nature. Of course, everybody began to be unselfish again about the bridge, and those who most obviously wanted to play unanimously offered to resign their places to those who did not care about it in the least. But the present new generation, like every other generation, has the qualities of its defects, and if it is graceless, it is also fearlessly candid. Martyn said that he would rather be shot than play bridge, any day of the week, and Sallie said that she thought cards out of doors would be a loathsome idea, and Bill Patch thanked Mrs. Leeds very much but he’d a good deal rather not. Mrs. Fazackerly, however, said that she would love to play, when she thought herself needed to make up a rubber, and when she saw that she wasn’t, said that she didn’t really care for bridge at all, and would honestly prefer not to play. “You’ll play, Mrs. Harter,” said Leeds in his affirmative way. “I know you’re a gambler, right enough. D’you remember that night at the Club when old Patterson’s crew played whisky poker till the small hours, and by Jove, d’you remember the cards you picked up? I’ve never forgotten them. Never saw such cards in my life.” “I always hold good cards,” said Mrs. Harter indifferently. And of course one of the Kendals rushed in where ordinarily intelligent human beings, let alone angels, would have thought twice about treading. “Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,” said Aileen, in the self-satisfied tone of one who is making a consciously apt observation. The way in which some among us then looked straight at Bill and Mrs. Harter was only less indecently obvious than the way in which others among us at once looked away from them.