Presently she approached him, outwardly with graceful composure, inwardly with much trepidation, and said, without raising her eyes above his enamel solitaire shirt-stud: “You will play, will you not, Reginald?” “Thanks, no,” he replied, leaning still farther back in his chair and languidly drawing Tory towards him by both ears. “Oh do,” she persisted, nervously twisting her bangles round and round her wrist; “we are so few, and Geoffrey says you can teach us a new game.” “No, thank you, Alice, I feel too stupid this evening.” This speech was evidently said with intention, and a look that baffled and chilled her accompanied the shaft as it went home. “Nonsense, my good fellow!” exclaimed Geoffrey from the card-table, “of course you’ll play. I never heard of such laziness. You will have to come to make up the number.” Thus adjured, he was obliged to join the circle, where he ostentatiously selected the farthest seat from Alice. All the same he sat opposite her, and was forced during the game to address her frequently; but his tone was coolly formal, and frozen indifference was in his glance. Nevertheless, it was as much as he could do to keep his head cool, with those lovely wistful eyes opposite him. “What, in Heaven’s name, does she mean?” he muttered to himself over his cards, as more than once she made some remark and smiled at him across the table. “_Souvent femme varie, folle qui se fie._ She has perhaps changed her mind in spite of her assurance to me yesterday. I shall not change _mine_, come what may.” His answers to her questions were curtly polite, and he appeared totally absorbed in the game, and nothing but the game, and the enormous heap of counters that were piled before him. “Just look at Reginald,” said Geoffrey, pointing enviously at his riches; “did you ever see such luck? What’s that saying about love and play? Something beginning, ‘_Malheureux en jeu_----’” “Never mind French quotations,” interrupted Helen precipitately, and frowning and signing at Geoffrey, “but pay me the six counters you owe me.” “What are you nodding your head and frowning for?” inquired this exasperating youth. “I’ve not said anything, have I?” looking round with an air of injured innocence. “I’m bankrupt!” exclaimed Alice, suddenly folding her hands on the table and looking with a mock-melancholy face at Mark. A reckless gambler, she had just seen her last counter swept away, and was utterly penniless. Loans were freely offered by Helen and Geoffrey. Helen was only too glad to divert the conversation, but much to their astonishment she declined their assistance, saying, as she held a pink palm across the table: “Reginald is the richest of you all; he has made a fortune, and he is the proper person to pay my gambling debts.”