IN WHICH ALL RULES ARE BROKEN

Swiftly I appraised the cool perfection of her attire, scenting the spice of the pinks she had thrust at her belt.  And I suffered one heart-quickening look from her eyes before she could lower them to me.  In that instant I was stung with a presentiment that our treaty was in peril—­that it might go fearfully to smash if I did not fortify myself.  It came to me that the creature had regarded my past success in observing this treaty with a kind of provocative resentment.  I cannot tell how I knew it—­certainly through no recognized media of communication.

Most formally I offered her a chair by the card-table, and resumed my own chair with what I meant for an air of inhospitable abstraction.  She declined the chair, preferring to stand by the table as was her custom.

“It was on this spot years ago,” I said, laying down the second eight cards, “that Solon Denney first told me he was about to marry.”

Discursive gossip seemed best, I thought.

“Two long yellow braids,” she remarked.  It would be too much to say that her words were snapped out.

“And now he has told me again—­I mean that he’s going to marry again.”

“What did you do?” she asked more cordially, studying the cards.

“The first time I went to war,” I answered absently, having to play up the ace and deuce of diamonds.

“I have never been able to care much for yellow hair,” she observed, also studying the cards; “of course, it’s effective, in a way, but—­may I ask what you’re going to do this time?”

“This time I’m going to play the game.”

Again she studied the cards.

“It’s refining,” I insisted.  “It teaches.  I’m learning to be a Sannyasin.”

Eight other cards were down, and I engrossed myself with them.

“Is a Sannyasin rather dull?”

“In the Bhagavad-gita,” I answered, “he is to be known as a Sannyasin who does not hate and does not love anything.”

“How are you progressing?” I felt her troubling eyes full upon me, and I suspected there was mockery in their depths.

“Oh, well, fairishly—­but of course I haven’t studied as faithfully as I might.”

“I should think you couldn’t afford to be negligent.”

I played up the four of spades and put a king of hearts in the space thus happily secured.

“I have read,” I answered absently, “that a benevolent man should allow himself a few faults to keep his friends in countenance.  I mustn’t be everything perfect, you know.”

“Don’t restrain yourself in the least on my account.”

“You are my sole trouble,” I said, playing a black seven on a red eight.  She looked off the table as I glanced up at her.

I am a patient enough man, I believe, and I hope meek and lowly, but I saw suddenly that not all the beatitudes should be taken without reservation.