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?”