CHAPTER X

A LITTLE ROUND GAME OF CARDS

Sylvia sat down in a chair and waited.  She waited impatiently, for she knew that she had almost reached the limits of her self-command, and needed the presence of others to keep her from breaking down.  But her native courage came to her aid, and in half an hour she heard the steps of her father and his guests in the passage.  She noticed that her father looked anxiously toward her as he came in.

“Do you mind if we bring in our cigars?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said she; and he came in, carrying in his hand a box of cigars, which he placed in the middle of the table.  Wallie Hine at once stumbled across the room to Sylvia; he walked unsteadily, his features were more flushed than before.  She shrank a little from him.  But he had not the time to sit down beside her, for Captain Barstow exclaimed jovially: 

“I say, Garratt, I have an idea.  There are five of us here.  Let us have a little round game of cards.”

Sylvia started.  In her heart she knew that just some such proposal as this she had been dreading all the evening.  Her sinking hopes died away altogether.

This poor witless youth, plied with champagne; the older men who flattered him with lies; the suggestion of champagne made as though it were a sudden inspiration, and the six bottles standing ready in the cupboard; and now the suggestion of a little round game of cards made in just the same tone!  Sylvia had a feeling of horror.  She had kept herself unspotted from her world, but not through ignorance.  She knew it.  She knew those little round games of cards and what came of them, sometimes merely misery and ruin, sometimes a pistol shot in the early morning.  She turned very pale, but she managed to say: 

“Thank you.  I don’t play cards.”

And then she heard a sudden movement by her father, who at the moment when Barstow spoke had been lighting a fresh cigar.  She looked up.  Garratt Skinner was staring in astonishment at Captain Barstow.

“Cards!” he cried.  “In my house?  On a Sunday evening?”

With each question his amazement grew, and he ended in a tone of remonstrance.

“Come, Barstow, you know me too well to propose that.  I am rather hurt.  A friendly talk, and a smoke, yes.  Perhaps a small whisky and soda.  I don’t say no.  But cards on a Sunday evening!  No indeed.”

“Oh, I say, Skinner,” objected Wallie Hine.  “There’s no harm in a little game.”

Garratt Skinner shook his head at Hine in a grave friendly way.

“Better leave cards alone, Wallie, always.  You are young, you know.”

Hine flushed.

“I am old enough to hold my own against any man,” he cried, hotly.  He felt that Garratt Skinner had humiliated him, and before this wonderful daughter of his in whose good favors Mr. Hine had been making such inroads during supper.  Barstow apologized for his suggestion at once, but Hine was now quite unwilling that he should withdraw it.