Miss Kate was finely the woman at those times when she deigned for a ten minutes to overlook my playing of the game. Before I had half finished, on the first occasion, she had mastered its simple mechanism; and before I had quite finished she sought to practise upon it those methods of the world woman in games of solitaire. She would calmly have placed a black nine on a black ten. "But the colors must alternate," I protested, thinking she had forgotten this important rule. "Of course--I know that perfectly well--but look what a fine lot of cards that would give you. There's a deuce of hearts you could play up and a three of spades, and then you could go back to crossing the colors again, right away, you know, and you'd have that whole line running up to the king ready to put into that space." I looked at her, as she would have glided brazenly over that false play to rejoice in the true plays it permitted. But I did not speak. There are times, indeed, when we most honor the tongue of Shakspere by silence; emergencies to which words are so inadequate that to attempt to use them were to degrade the whole language. At the last I was brought face to face with a most intricately planned defeat; a defeat insured by one spot on a card. Had the obstructive card been a six-spot of clubs instead of a seven-spot, victory was mine. I pointed this out to Miss Kate, who had declined a chair at the table and had chosen to stand beside my own. I showed her the series of plays which, but for that seven-spot, would put the kings in their places at the top and let me win. And I was beaten for lack of a six. That she had grasped my explanation was quickly made plain. Actually with some enthusiasm she showed me that the much-desired six of clubs lay directly under the fatal seven. "Just lay the seven over here," she began eagerly, "and there's your black six ready for that horrid red five that's in the way--" "But there isn't any 'over here,'" I exclaimed in some irritation. "There can only be eight cards in a row--that would make nine." "Yes, but then you could play up all the others so beautifully--just see!" "Is this a game," I asked, "or a child's crazy play?" "Then it's an exceedingly stupid game if you can't do a little thing like that when it's absolutely necessary. What is the _sense_ of it?" Her eyes actually flashed into mine as she leaned at my side pointing out this simple way to victory. "What's the sense of any rules to any game on earth?" I retorted. "If I hadn't learned to respect rules--if I hadn't learned to be thankful for what the game allows me, however little it may be--" I paused, for the water was deeper than I had thought. "Well?" "Well--well _then_--I shouldn't be as thankful as I am this instant for--for many things that I can't have more of." She straightened herself and favored me with a curious look that melted at last into a puzzling smile.