“My dear fellow,” laughed his brother, when he protested, “we have a phrase ‘to cheat at cards like a woman.’” And then Oliver went on to tell him of his own first experience at cards in Society, when he had played poker with several charming young debutantes; they would call their hands and take the money without showing their cards, and he had been too gallant to ask to see them.  But later he learned that this was a regular practice, and so he never played poker with women.  And Oliver pointed out one of these girls to his brother—­sitting, as beautiful as a picture and as cold as marble, with a half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the table, and whisky and soda and glasses of cracked ice beside her.  Later on, as he chanced to be reading a newspaper, his brother leaned over his shoulder and pointed out another of the symptoms of the craze—­an advertisement headed, “Your luck will change.”  It gave notice that at Rosenstein’s Parlours, just off Fifth Avenue, one might borrow money upon expensive gowns and furs!

All during the ten days of this house-party, Mrs. Winnie devoted herself to seeing that Montague had a good time; Mrs. Winnie sat beside him at table—­he found that somehow a convention had been established which assigned him to Mrs. Winnie as a matter of course.  Nobody said anything to him about it, but knowing how relentlessly the affairs of other people were probed and analyzed, he began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

There came a time when he felt quite smothered by Mrs. Winnie; and immediately after lunch one day he broke away and went for a long walk by himself.  This was the occasion of his meeting with an adventure.

An inch or two of snow had fallen, and lay gleaming in the sunlight.  The air was keen, and he drank deep draughts of it, and went striding away over the hills for an hour or so.  There was a gale blowing, and as he came over the summits it would strike him, and he would see the river white with foam.  And then down in the valleys again all would be still.

Here, in a thickly wooded place, Montague’s attention was arrested suddenly by a peculiar sound, a heavy thud, which seemed to shake the earth.  It suggested a distant explosion, and he stopped for a moment and then went on, gazing ahead.  He passed a turn, and then he saw a great tree which had fallen directly across the road.

He went on, thinking that this was what he had heard.  But as he came nearer, he saw his mistake.  Beyond the tree lay something else, and he began to run toward it.  It was two wheels of an automobile, sticking up into the air.

He sprang upon the tree-trunk, and in one glance he saw the whole story.  A big touring-car had swept round the sharp turn, and swerved to avoid the unexpected obstruction, and so turned a somersault into the ditch.

Montague gave a thrill of horror, for there was the form of a man pinned beneath the body of the car.  He sprang toward it, but a second glance made him stop—­he saw that blood had gushed from the man’s mouth and soaked the snow all about.  His chest was visibly crushed flat, and his eyes were dreadful, half-started from their sockets.