ney, I'm
afraid Overton would have a lecture ready for you, if he learned of your
skill."

"Let him," she said, recklessly. "I've tried to be good, and tried to be
nice, and--and even pretty," she added, touching the dainty sleeve and
skirt of her dress, "but what use is it? He just stands off and stares
at me, and even speaks sharp as if he's sorry he ever brought me down
here. I didn't think he'd be like that. He was nicer in Akkomi's village;
and now--"

She hesitated, and, seeing that Lyster's eyes were watching her
attentively, she laughed in a careless way, and curled the five-dollar
bill around her finger.

"So I might as well be bad, don't you see? and I'm going to be, too. I
want this five dollars to gamble with, and for nothing else in the world.
I'm going to get square with some one."

"Which means you are going to worry some one else, just because Overton
has annoyed you," decided Lyster. "That is a woman's idea of retaliation,
I believe. Am I the selected victim?"

"Of course you're not, or I wouldn't have told you. All I wanted of you
was to give me a start."

"Exactly; your frankness is not very flattering; but, in spite of it, I'd
like to give you a start in a different way--toward a good school, for
instance. How would you like that?"

She looked at him for a moment suspiciously, she was so used to raillery
from him; then she answered briefly:

"But you are not my guardian, Mr. Max Lyster."

"Then you prefer card playing?"

"No, I don't. I'd like it, but my income can't cover such luxuries, and I
have booked myself to play for a time this evening, if I can get the man I
want to play with."

"But that is what you must not do," he said, hastily. "With Overton or
myself, of course, a game would not do you any special harm; but you
simply must not indulge in such pastime with this promiscuous gathering
of people--of men."

"But it isn't men--it's only one man I want to play--do you see?"

"I might if I knew who it was; but you don't know any men here but Dan and
me."

"Yes, I do, too. I know Captain Alphonso Leek."

"Perhaps, but--" Lyster smiled, and shook his head dubiously.

"But he won't play with me, because he don't like me; that's what you
would say, if you were not too polite--isn't it? He doesn't approve of me,
and can't understand why I'm on the face of the earth, and especially why
Dan should take any responsibility but Captain Leek on his hands. Huh!
Can't I see? Of course