“Oh, it’s over!” exclaimed Adela.  “What a pity!  Never mind!  Let’s go in!  Perhaps they’ll play again.”

The barmaid came flying out to fetch drinks as they entered.  The atmosphere of the room was thick with smoke.  A babel of voices filled it.  Men who had been sitting round the walls were grouped about the table.  In the midst of them stood the victor in his shirt-sleeves, conspicuous in the crowd by reason of his great height—­a splendid figure of manhood with a careless freedom of bearing that was in its way superb.

He was turned away from the door at their entrance, and Dot saw only a massive head of straw-coloured hair above a neck that was burnt brick-red.  Then, laughing at some joke, he wheeled round again to the table; and she saw his face....

It was the face of a Viking, deeply sunburnt, vividly alive.  A fair moustache covered his upper lip, and below it the teeth gleamed, white and regular like the teeth of an animal in the wilderness.  He had that indescribable look of morning-time, of youth at its best, which only springs in the wild.  His eyes were intensely blue.  They gazed straight across at her with startling directness.

And suddenly Dot’s heart gave a great jerk, and stood still.  It was not the first time that those eyes had looked into hers.

The moment passed.  He bent himself over the table, poised for a stroke, which she saw him execute a second later with a delicacy that thrilled her strangely.  Full well did she remember the deftness and the steadiness of those brown hands.  Had they not held her up, sustained her, in the greatest crisis of her life?

Her heart throbbed on again with hard, uneven strokes.  She was straining her ears for the sound of his voice—­that voice that had once spoken to her quivering soul, pleading with her that she would at their next meeting treat him—­without prejudice.  The memory thrilled through her.  This was the man for whose coming she had waited so long!

He had straightened himself again, and was coming round the table to follow up his stroke.  Fletcher Hill spoke at her shoulder.

“Sit down!” he said.  “There is room here.”

There was a small space on the corner of the raised settee that ran along the side of the room.  Dot and Adela sat down together.  Hill stood beside them, looking over the faces of the men present, with keen eyes that missed nothing.

Dot sat palpitating, her hands clasped before her, seeing only the great figure that leaned over the table for another stroke.  Would he look at her again?  Would he remember her?  Would he speak?

Fascinated, she watched him.  He executed his stroke, again with that steady confidence, that self-detachment, that seemed to set him apart from all other men.  He was standing close to her now, and the nearness of his presence thrilled her.  She tingled from head to foot, as if under the power of an electric battery.