I watched the table for his card to fall, but as it did not, looked at him for the reason.  He had forgotten us, and was lost in contemplation, with his eyes fixed upon me.  The recognition of some impulse had mastered him.  I must prevent Helen and Mr. Somers perceiving this!  I shuffled the cards noisily, rustled my dress, looked right and left for my handkerchief to break the spell.

“How the wind moans!” said Helen.  I understood her tone; she understood him, as I did.

“I like Rosville, Miss Perkins,” cried Mr. Somers.

“Do you?” said Charles, clicking down his card, as though his turn had just come.  “I must trump this in spite of you.”

“I am tired of playing,” I said.

“We are beaten, Miss Perkins,” said Mr. Somers, rising.  “Bring it here,” to a servant going by with a tray and glasses.  He drank a goblet of wine, before he offered us any.  “Now give us music!” offering his arm to Helen, and taking her away.  Charles and I remained at the table.  “By the way,” he said abruptly, “I have forgotten to give you a letter from your father—­here it is.”  I stretched my hand across the table, he retained it.  I rose from my chair and stood beside him.

“Cassandra,” he said at last, growing ashy pale, “is there any other world than this we are in now?”

I raised my eyes, and saw my own pale face in the glass over the mantel above his head.

“What do you see?” he asked, starting up.

I pointed to the glass.

“I begin to think,” I said, “there is another world, one peopled with creatures like those we see there.  What are they—­base, false, cowardly?”

“Cowardly,” he muttered, “will you make me crush you?  Can we lie to each other?  Look!”

He turned me from the glass.

At that moment Helen struck a crashing blow on the piano keys.

“Charles, give me—­give me the letter.”

He looked vaguely round the floor, it was crumpled in his hand.  A side door shut, and I stood alone.  Pinching my cheeks and wiping my lips to force the color back, I returned to the parlor.  Mr. Somers came to me with a glass of wine.  It was full, and some spilled on my dress; he made no offer to wipe it off.  After that, he devoted himself to Alice; talked lightly with her, observing her closely.  I made the tour of the party, overlooked the whist players, chatted with the talkers, finally taking a seat, where Helen joined me.

“Now I am going,” she said.

“Why don’t they all go?”

“Look at Mr. Somers playing the agreeable to Mrs. Morgeson.  What kind of a woman is she, Cass?”

“Go and learn for yourself.”

“I fear I have not the gift for divining people that you have.”

“Do you hear the wind moan now, Helen?”

She turned crimson, and said:  “Let us go to the window; I think it rains.”

We stood within the curtains, and listened to its pattering on the floor of the piazza, and trickling down the glass like tears.