The Knave of Diamonds | Page 2

no whit disconcerted, calmly seated himself at one of the tables behind her and took up a pack of cards.
The dance-music in the room below was uproariously gay. Some of the dancers were singing. Now and then a man's voice bellowed through the clamour like the blare of a bull.
Whenever this happened, the man at the table smiled to himself a faint, thin-lipped smile, and the woman at the window shivered again.
Suddenly, during a lull, he spoke. He was counting out the cards into heaps with lightning rapidity, turning up one here and there, and he did not raise his eyes from his occupation.
"I say, you know," he said in a drawl that was slightly nasal, "you will have to tell me how old you are. Is that an obstacle?"
She wheeled round at the first deliberate syllable. The electric light flared upon her pale, proud face. She stood in dead silence, looking at him.
"You mustn't mind," he said persuasively, still without lifting his eyes. "I swear I'll never tell. Come now!"
Very quietly she turned and closed the window; then with a certain stateliness she advanced to the table at which he sat, and stopped before it.
"I think you are making a mistake," she said, in a voice that had a hint of girlish sweetness about it despite its formality.
He looked up then with a jerk, and the next instant was on his feet.
"Gad! I'm tremendously sorry! What must you take me for? I took you for Mrs. Damer. I beg you will forgive me."
She smiled a little, and some of the severity went out of her face. For a moment that too seemed girlish.
"It is of no consequence. I saw it was a mistake."
"An idiotic mistake!" he declared with emphasis. "And you are not a bit like Mrs. Damer either. Are you waiting for someone? Would you like me to clear out?"
"Certainly not. I am going myself."
"Oh, but don't!" he begged her very seriously. "I shall take it horribly to heart if you do. And really, I don't deserve such a snub as that."
Again she faintly smiled. "I am not feeling malicious, but you are expecting your partner. And I--"
"No, I am not," he asserted. "My partner has basely deserted me for another fellow. I came in here merely because I was wandering about seeking distraction. Please don't go--unless I bore you--in which case you have only to dismiss me."
She turned her eyes questioningly upon the cards before him. "What are you doing with them? Is it a game?"
"Won't you sit down?" he said, "and I will tell you."
She seated herself facing him. "Well?"
He considered the cards for a little, his brows bent. Then, "It is a magician's game," he said. "Let me read your fortune."
She hesitated.
Instantly he looked up. "You are not afraid?"
She met his look, a certain wistfulness in her grey eyes. "Oh, no, not afraid--only sceptical."
"Only sceptical!" he echoed. "That is a worldwide complaint. But anyone with imagination can always pretend. You are not good at pretending?"
"Not particularly."
His eyes challenged hers. "Perhaps you have never needed an anaesthetic?" he said coolly.
She looked slightly startled. "What do you mean?"
He leaned deliberately forward across the table. "You know what an anaesthetic does, don't you? It cheats the senses of pain. And a little humbug does the same for the mind. Of course you don't believe anything. I don't myself. But you can't stand for ever and contemplate an abyss of utter ignorance. You must weave a little romance about it for the sake of your self-respect."
She looked straight into the challenging eyes. The wistfulness was still in her own. "Then you are offering to weave a little romance for me?" she said, with a faint involuntary sigh.
He made her a brief bow. "If you will permit me to do so."
"To relieve your boredom?" she suggested with a smile.
"And yours," he smiled back, taking up the cards.
She did not contradict him. She only lowered her eyes to the deft hands that were disposing the cards in mystic array upon the table.
There followed a few moments of silence; then in his careless, unmusical drawl the man spoke.
"Do you mind telling me your first name? It is essential to the game, of course, or I shouldn't presume to ask."
"My name is Anne," she said.
The noise below had lessened considerably, and this fact seemed to cause her some relief. The tension had gone out of her bearing. She sat with her chin upon her hand.
Not a beautiful woman by any means, she yet possessed that indescribable charm which attracts almost in spite of itself. There was about her every movement a queenly grace that made her remarkable, and yet she was plainly not one to court attention. Her face in repose had a look of unutterable weariness.
"How old are you please?" said the