Part 31 (1/2)
”I lost twice twenty,” he observed. ”Bunny is in fifty, I believe. Duane and Rosalie lose.”
”Is that all you care about the game?” she asked with a note of contempt in her voice.
”Oh, it's good for one's health,” he said.
”So is confession, but there's no sport in it. Tell me, Mr. Dysart, don't you play any game for it's own sake?”
”Two, mademoiselle,” he said politely.
”What two?”
”Chess is one.”
”What is the other?”
”Love,” he replied, smiling at her so blandly that she laughed. Then she thought of Rosalie, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say something impudent. But ”Do you do that game very well?” was all she said.
”Would you care to judge how well I do it?”
”As umpire? Yes, if you like.”
He said: ”We will umpire our own game, Miss Seagrave.”
”Oh, we couldn't do that, could we? We couldn't play and umpire, too.”
Suddenly the thought of Duane and Rosalie turned her bitter and she said:
”We'll have two perfectly disinterested umpires. I choose your wife for one. Whom do you choose?”
Over his handsome face the slightest muscular change pa.s.sed, but far from wincing he nodded coolly.
”One umpire is enough,” he said. ”When our game is well on you may ask Rosalie to judge how well I've done it--if you care to.”
The bright smile she wore changed. Her face was now only a lovely dark-eyed mask, behind which her thoughts had suddenly begun racing--wild little thoughts, all tumult and confusion, all trembling, too, with some scarcely understood hurt las.h.i.+ng them to recklessness.
”We'll have two umpires,” she insisted, scarcely knowing what she said.
”I'll choose Duane for the second. He and Rosalie ought to be able to agree on the result of our game.”
Dysart turned his head away leisurely, then looked around again unsmiling.
”Two umpires? Soit! But that means you consent to play.”
”Play?”
”Certainly.”
”With you?”
”With me.”
”I'll consider it.... Do you know we have been talking utter nonsense?”