She was very far from being an ill-looking woman, as she stood there, with smiles puckering her lips and peeping from her eyes. "If he should suppose that I am not in earnest! His experience may teach him that many women never are in earnest. If he should imagine that I am one of the many!" Raising her right hand, she began daintily pinching her lower lip between her finger and her thumb. "It would be a pity for both of us." She made a little impatient movement with her head. "And yet, I can't believe that a man with his experience could suppose that I am one of the many. If he did, it would be his fault--not mine." The little clock struck four. "An hour more, my friend--an hour more. And then--well, I do hope you'll come before the hour's out, for your sake, as well as mine. I wonder if, in this little matter, I've been counting my chickens before they're hatched. I, of all women, should have known better. And, with such a hand faced on the board, one might be excused for supposing that it would take the pool. A straight flush cannot be beaten." She laughed again, this time not quite so lightly. "It reminds me of some of the games which I have seen played. You can't show a hand to beat a straight, but you can fight to save the pool. I wonder if he means fighting. If he does, it'll be against all the odds. He has neither gun nor bow. When I start shooting, he's bound to drop. Sure." The merriment passed from her face, the laughter from her eyes--an expression of anxiety came into them instead; a look which suggested hunger, a something which made her, all at once, seem actually old. "Perhaps he takes it that a victory, on these lines, may mean more than a defeat. And he counts on that. It would, too. It would mean farewell--a long farewell, an actual farewell--to another of my dreams. And the brightest of them all. But I don't care. It would mean death to him. Death! And such a death! And, after all, it would only mean a stumble to me. From the practice I have had, I have become so used to stumbles that surely one other wouldn't count." She began moving about the room restlessly, touching here a table, there a chair, to the window, and back again, as if a spirit possessed her which made her not know what it was she wanted to be at. She approached a corner of the room, as if she were about to take refuge in it, like some naughty child. As she went, clenching her fists, as if she were pressing her finger-nails into her palms, she gave a little cry. "Oh, I'd give--I'd give, what wouldn't I give?--if he'd come into the room, now--without keeping me waiting any longer, now!--and speak to me as I would have him speak! Why doesn't he come? He has everything to gain, he has nothing to lose!" She swept right round, with a swish of her skirts, in a sort of frenzy, echoing her own question as she swung out her arms in front of her. "Why doesn't he come?"