trying to choose a card from
the dummy. He at length carefully lifted the king of spades from it as
if it weighed a ton, and then, after looking at it soberly, put it back
and scowled at his own hand. Henry, who had his card ready to throw down
upon the table, slid it back into his hand with the look of resignation
that has tranquillized our memories of the Early Christian Martyrs. The
Dean rested his eye on the tempting king in the dummy and pursed his
lips. He _would do_ it. Then he leaned over and played it with the air
of a man who lays all in the lap of the gods. Mrs. Conover, who had been
shuffling her cards around in ill-suppressed excitement, popped out a
trump with a cry of triumph just as Henry's Ace of Spades covered the
king. A dreadful scene followed. The Dean was all gallantry, Mrs.
Conover all self-reproach, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee all charm, and
Henry all exasperation; and when, later in the same hand, his mind torn
with the memory of his lost ace, he made a revoke and was quietly
brought to account by the Dean, Nancy discreetly withdrew.

Tom, who had seen her at the table with three people whom she met
constantly and upon whom she hardly needed to make a call, felt
decidedly snubbed. Was she, after all, so much a Whitman that she felt
no need to obey the ordinary rules of decency? It seemed too bad, for
his impression of her earlier in the evening had been decidedly
different.

Tom had sometimes wondered about love at first sight. What was it
anyway? How did one feel? Was it like a blow between the eyes, a ball in
the breast? Did one stagger and have to lie down, with a pulse coursing
up to one hundred and five? What was it? When Tom first looked at Nancy
in the costume closet he wondered if he were to be brought face to face
with the answer. Certainly, little hints by the Norrises and Old Mrs.
Conover would have put the idea into his head, had it not in the natural
course of events found its way there unaided.

And now Nancy had made it clear that she did not care to have anything
to do with him. It was, he guessed, because of the too tender passage in
the charade. He pictured himself arguing with her. "It is ridiculous to
object to me because I played the part well. Would you have had me a
stick and make the thing even more of a bore?" "No," coldly, "but you
didn't have to have that part in it." "Well, it made it more
interesting, and, besides, if you think that I put it in just for an
excuse to