She played because she always
had played, by habit, a second nature that had ousted the first.
Her skill was so unerring that for Durant it robbed the game of its
last lingering attraction, the divine element of chance. One tinge
of consciousness, one touch of fire, and it would have been sheer
devilry. As it was he could have been sorry for her, though in her
infinite apathy she seemed to be placed beyond his pity and her own.
With no movement save in her delicate sallow fingers, she sat there
like an incarnate Ennui, the terrible genius of the house.

The Colonel, though losing rapidly, was in high good humor. He
displayed a chivalrous forbearance with the weakness of Mrs.
Fazakerly, who committed every folly and indiscretion possible to a
partner. He bowed when he dealt to her; he bowed when she dealt to
him; he bowed when she revoked.

"'To err is human,'" said the Colonel.

"'To forgive, divine,'" said Mrs. Fazakerly, smiling at Durant, as
much as to say, "You observe his appropriation of the supreme
_role_?"

And indeed the Colonel bore himself with some consciousness of his
metaphysical dignity. He was pleased with everybody, pleased with
Durant, pleased with Mrs. Fazakerly, most particularly pleased with
Colonel Tancred, late of the Wickshire militia.

And as the game wore on Durant realized the full horror of his
position. The gallant Colonel was not going to leave that table till
he had won, and he could never win. He frowned on Durant's proposal
to change partners; he would accept no easy victory. They were in
for a night of it. Durant was in torment, but he sat on, fascinated
by the abominable beauty of his own play; he sat with every nerve on
edge, listening to the intolerable tick of time.

Ten o'clock. He thought it had been midnight. He passed his hand
over his face, as if to feel if it were stiffening in its expression
of agony.

And all the time Mrs. Fazakerly kept on raising and dropping her
eyeglass. Now and then she gave him a look that plumbed the sources
of his suffering. It seemed to recommend her own courageous
attitude, to say, "My dear young man, we are being bored to death;
you know it, and I know it. But for Goodness' sake, let us die with
pleasant faces, since we can but die."

And Durant felt that she was right. He fell into her mood, and
passed from it into a sort of delirium. There could be no end to it;
his partner's pitiless hands would never have done shuffling the
cards.