"What are you fond of?" He would have liked to say that he was fond of her. He had had partners to whom he would have said it without the slightest hesitation; but somehow he felt that this was a partner with whom the remark might not have the success it deserved; and before he spoke she again went on. "Are you fond of gambling?" "Gambling?" He stared at her with startled eyes, it seemed to him to be such a singular question to have hurled at him. "I mean, for instance, are you fond of poker?" Again she went on before he could speak, taking an answer for granted in a fashion which he found a trifle disconcerting. "But, of course, I know you are; I have heard of some of your performances at poker." He really did not like her tone at all; there was something in it which made him conscious of a vague discomfort. What could the girl be driving at? "Particularly I've heard of one." She said it while she was glancing at him over the top of her fan, which she was opening and shutting. "Which one?" "Weren't you playing some months ago when one of your brother officers was accused of cheating?" Small wonder if his eyes seemed to grow rounder, the bad taste of such a remark! To say nothing of its unexpectedness. "Really, I don't know to what you refer." "Oh yes, you do. You know perfectly well; if you don't, I'll explain." "Thank you very much, but if you don't mind, I'll take you back to the ballroom; there's someone whom I've just thought I ought to be behaving nicely to." "You'll behave as nicely as you can to me before you try your practised hand on anybody else. You've presence of mind, Mr. Tickell, but it won't do. You sit still until I let you go." Except by violence, he could hardly have got away; he saw now why she had expressly directed him to take the farther chair. He could scarcely get out of the alcove without passing her; he did not see how he could do it if she did not choose to let him. "At the game of poker to which I wish to call your attention, right at the close, you were betting against Mr. Sydney Beaton." "If you don't mind, I'd much rather not talk about it; I don't know how you came to know anything about it, but you'll understand that it's rather a painful subject to me. What do you think of the floor--first-rate, isn't it?" If he hoped to get her to confine her conversation to what he regarded as proper topics, his hope was doomed to disappointment, as she at once made plain. "There was a good bit of money in the pool, at the point on which I wish to refresh your memory--over a thousand pounds, I've been given to understand, at the moment when Mr. Beaton covered your raise--you had a straight, king high; Mr. Beaton had a full, three aces and a pair of knaves, a much better hand than yours, and yet, I'm told, you claimed the pool." "Then you've been misinformed. Excuse me, Miss Forster, I don't know what all this has to do with you." "It has a very great deal to do with me. You claimed the pool----"