“Yes, that’s it; the devil is usually the other fellow.  But, Mrs. Delancy,” added Henderson, with an accent of seriousness, “I don’t know what it’s all for.  I doubt if there is much in it.”

“And yet the world credits you with finding a great deal in it.”

“The world is generally wrong.  Do you understand poker, Mrs. Delancy?  No!  Of course you do not.  But the interest of the game isn’t so much in the cards as in the men.”

“I thought it was the stakes.”

“Perhaps so.  But you want to win for the sake of winning.  If I gambled it would be a question of nerve.  I suppose that which we all enjoy is the exercise of skill in winning.”

“And not for the sake of doing anything—­just winning?  Don’t you get tired of that?” asked Edith, quite simply.

There was something in Edith’s sincerity, in her fresh enthusiasm about life, that appeared to strike a reminiscent note in Henderson.  Perhaps he remembered another face as sweet as hers, and ideals, faint and long ago, that were once mixed with his ideas of success.  At any rate, it was with an accent of increased deference, and with a look she had not seen in his face before, that he said: 

“People get tired of everything.  I’m not sure but it would interest me to see for a minute how the world looks through your eyes.”  And then he added, in a different tone, “As to your East Side, Mrs. Henderson tried that some years ago.”

“Wasn’t she interested?”

“Oh, very much.  For a time.  But she said there was too much of it.”  And Edith could detect no tone of sarcasm in the remark.

Down at the other end of the table, matters were going very smoothly.  Jack was charmed with his hostess.  That clever woman had felt her way along from the heresy trial, through Tuxedo and the Independent Theatre and the Horse Show, until they were launched in a perfectly free conversation, and Carmen knew that she hadn’t to look out for thin ice.

“Were you thinking of going on to the Conventional Club tonight, Mr. Delancy?” she was saying.

“I don’t belong,” said Jack.  “Mrs. Delancy said she didn’t care for it.”

“Oh, I don’t care for it, for myself,” replied Carmen.

“I do,” struck in Miss Tavish.  “It’s awfully nice.”

“Yes, it does seem to fill a want.  Why, what do you do with your evenings, Mr. Delancy?”

“Well, here’s one of them.”

“Yes, I know, but I mean between twelve o’clock and bedtime.”

“Oh,” said Jack, laughing out loud, “I go to bed—­sometimes.”

“Yes, ’there’s always that.  But you want some place to go to after the theatres and the dinners; after the other places are shut up you want to go somewhere and be amused.”

“Yes,” said Jack, falling in, “it is a fact that there are not many places of amusement for the rich; I understand.  After the theatres you want to be amused.  This Conventional Club is—­”