“Ah, I feared you overheard.”

The arrogance of the gesture with which she interrupted me was splendid.

“He said, ‘How long are you going to keep up that—­that—­’”

“That will do,” I said severely.  “Remember there is a gentleman present.”  But my voice sounded queerly indeed to the ears most familiar with its quality.  Also it trembled, for her gaze, almost stern in its questioning, had not released me.

“But how long are you?” Her own voice had trembled, as mine did.  She might as well have used the avoided word.  Her tone carried it far too intelligibly.  It was quite as bad as swearing.  I tried twice before I succeeded in finding my voice.

“I’ve told you,” I said desperately; “can’t you see—­that queen isn’t free?”

Swiftly—­I regret to say, almost with a show of temper—­she snatched the four of diamonds from its lawful place and laid it brazenly far outside the game.

“The creature is free,” she said crisply—­but at once her arrogance was gone and she drooped visibly in weakness.

So quickly did I rise from the table that the cards of the game were hurled into a meaningless confusion.  I stood at her side.  I had lost myself.

“Little Miss,—­oh, Little Miss!  I’ve a thousand arms all crying for you.”

Slowly she made her eyes come to mine—­not without effort, for we were close.

“I am glad we left you,”—­she had meant to say “that arm,” I judge, but there was a break in her voice, a swift movement, and she suddenly said “this arm,” with a little shudder in which she could not meet my eyes; for, such as the arm was, she had finished her speech from within it.  Close I held her, like a witless moonling, forgetting all resolves, all lessons, all treaties—­all but that she was not a dream woman.

“Oh, Little Miss!” was all I could say; and she—­“Calvin Blake!” as if it were a phrase of endearment.

“Little Miss, that loss has put me out, but never has it been the hardship it is now—­one arm!”

I had not thought it possible for her to come nearer, but a successful nestling movement was her answer.

“I feel the need of a thousand arms, and yet their strength is—­”

“Is in this one.”  She completed my sentence with her own nestling emphasis for “this one.”

“Can you believe now, Little Miss?”

“Yes—­you gave it to me again.”

“Can you believe that I—­I—­”

“That was never hard.  I believed that the first evening I saw you.”

“A womanish thing to say—­I didn’t know it myself.”

But she laughed to me, laughed still as I brought her face nearer—­so near.  Only then did her parted lips close tensely in the woman fear of what she read in my eyes.  I have reason to believe that she would have mastered this fear, but at that instant Miss Caroline coughed rather alarmingly.