"Do you want your bills paid?" he asked. "Because, if you do, Fane, Harmon & Co. are not going to pay them." "We are living beyond our means?" she inquired disdainfully. "Not if you will be good enough to mind your business, my friend. I've managed this establishment on our winnings for two years. It's a detail; but you might as well know it. My association with Fane, Harmon & Co. runs the Newport end of it, and nothing more." "What did you marry me for?" she asked curiously. A slight colour came into his face: "Because that damned Rosamund Fane lied about you." "Oh! . . . You knew that in Manila? You'd heard about it, hadn't you--the Western timber-lands? Rosamund didn't mean to lie--only the titles were all wrong, you know. . . . And so you made a bad break, Jack; is that it?" "Yes, that is it." "And it cost you a fortune, and me a--husband. Is that it, my friend?" "I can afford you if you will stop your meddling," he said coolly. "I see; I am to stop my meddling and you are to continue your downtown gambling in your own house in the evenings." "Precisely. It happens that I am sufficiently familiar with the stock-market to make a decent living out of the Exchange; and it also happens that I am sufficiently fortunate with cards to make the pleasure of playing fairly remunerative. Any man who can put up proper margin has a right to my services; any man whom I invite and who can take up his notes, has a right to play under my roof. If his note goes to protest, he forfeits that right. Now will you kindly explain to yourself exactly how this matter can be of any interest to you?" "I have explained it," she said wearily. "Will you please go, now?" He sat a moment, then rose: "You make a point of excluding Gerald?" "Yes." "Very well; I'll telephone Draymore. And"--he looked back from the door of his own apartments--"I got Julius Neergard on the wire this afternoon and he'll dine with us." He gathered up his shimmering kimona, hesitated, halted, and again looked back. "When you're dressed," he drawled, "I've a word to say to you about the game to-night, and another about Gerald." "I shall not play," she retorted scornfully, "nor will Gerald." "Oh, yes, you will--and play your best, too. And I'll expect him next time." "I shall not play!" He said deliberately: "You will not only play, but play cleverly; and in the interim, while dressing, you will reflect how much more agreeable it is to play cards here than the fool at ten o'clock at night in the bachelor apartments of your late lamented." And he entered his room; and his wife, getting blindly to her feet, every atom of colour gone from lip and cheek, stood rigid, both small hands clutching the foot-board of the gilded bed. CHAPTER VI THE UNEXPECTED