But this alone would have roused in him no suspicion that there was anything wrong about these hospitable strangers. Many an English household that he knew of spent Sunday in much the same way, and incurred no suspicion of there being anything worse than a tendency to dissipation on the part of its members. Racing ladies like Lady Sylvia and the Marchioness were known to play bridge on most days, and yet they were not “cut” by their acquaintances and friends. It was the fact that he had met Rachel Davison at the Priory which filled Gerard with disquietude. For, whatever might be the truth about her, it was undeniable that he had so far never failed to find her connected in some more or less close way with things that had been better undone. The incident in the crowd on the night of the ball; the affair at the stores; her deceit towards her mother and Lady Jennings; all these things combined to make it impossible to see in this fresh phase of Rachel’s existence anything but some new form of trickery or ugly mystery. To have seen her sit down to play cards with these Americans, therefore, would alone have made him curious concerning them; but, coupled with the fact that both she and the Van Santens had pretended not to know the man Jones, her playing became at once suggestive to Gerard’s unwilling mind of something being wrong with the play. What he would have passed without remark at any other time, therefore, now became a source of disturbance and uneasiness to him; and instead of taking for granted that Denver’s estimate of his gains that day was correct, he made a little sum for himself, based on what he had heard, in answer to his inquiries, concerning the luck of the rest of the card-players. And the result of his calculations was to find that, instead of Denver’s having won twenty-six pounds, which was his own rough estimate of his winnings, he must have netted at least two hundred pounds. From this calculation it was easy to go on to others; and to say that, if Denver played poker once a week only, and if he were always as lucky and as skillful as he had shown himself that day, then his annual income derived from the cards alone must be something approaching ten thousand pounds. Of course he had no possible means of knowing whether Denver did play poker every Sunday; and whether he invariably won at it; but, taking the facts that he knew in conjunction with Miss Davison’s presence, and with the singular fact that she and the others pretended not to know Jones, who was clearly acting as a decoy, it seemed to Gerard terribly difficult to get away from the conclusion that something was wrong in the pleasant and hospitable household, and that Rachel Davison was mixed up in it.