PAGE 15
His Own People
by
“Twenty-five franc limit,” responded Cooley authoritatively. “Double for jacks. Play two hours and settle when we quit.”
Mellin leaned back in his chair. “You call that high?” he asked, with a sniff of contempt. “Why not double it?”
The fat man hammered the table with his fist delightedly. “‘He’s game,’ she says. ‘He’s the gamest little Indian ever come down the big road!’ she says. Was she right? What? Maybe she wasn’t! We’ll double it before very long, my boy; this’ll do to start on. There.” He distributed some of the small towers of ivory counters and made a memorandum in a notebook. “There’s four hundred apiece.”
“That all?” inquired Mellin, whereupon Mr. Pedlow uproariously repeated Madame de Vaurigard’s alleged tribute.
As the game began, the intelligent-looking maid appeared from the dining-room, bearing bottles of whisky and soda, and these she deposited upon small tables at the convenience of the players, so that at the conclusion of the first encounter in the gentle tournament there was material for a toast to the gallant who had won it.
“Here’s to the gamest Indian of us all,” proposed the fat man. “Did you notice him call me with a pair of tens? And me queen-high!”
Mellin drained a deep glass in honor of himself. “On my soul, Chan’ Pedlow, I think you’re the bes’ fellow in the whole world,” he said gratefully. “Only trouble with you–you don’t want to play high enough.”
He won again and again, adding other towers of counters to his original allotment, so that he had the semblance of a tiny castle. When the cards had been dealt for the fifth time he felt the light contact of a slipper touching his foot under the table.
That slipper, he decided (from the nature of things) could belong to none other than his Helene, and even as he came to this conclusion the slight pressure against his foot was gently but distinctly increased thrice. He pressed the slipper in return with his shoe, at the same time giving Madame de Vaurigard a look of grateful surprise and tenderness, which threw her into a confusion so evidently genuine that for an unworthy moment he had a jealous suspicion she had meant the little caress for some other.
It was a disagreeable thought, and, in the hope of banishing it, he refilled his glass; but his mood had begun to change. It seemed to him that Helene was watching Cooley a great deal too devotedly. Why had she consented to sit by Cooley, when she had promised to watch Robert Russ Mellin? He observed the pair stealthily.
Cooley consulted her in laughing whispers upon every discard, upon every bet. Now and then, in their whisperings, Cooley’s hair touched hers; sometimes she laid her hand on his the more conveniently to look at his cards. Mellin began to be enraged. Did she think that puling milksop had as much as a shadow of the daring, the devilry, the carelessness of consequences which lay within Robert Russ Mellin? “Consequences?” What were they? There were no such things! She would not look at him–well, he would make her! Thenceforward he raised every bet by another to the extent of the limit agreed upon.
Mr. Cooley was thoroughly happy. He did not resemble Ulysses; he would never have had himself bound to the mast; and there were already sounds of unearthly sweetness in his ears. His conferences with his lovely hostess easily consoled him for his losses. In addition, he was triumphing over the boaster, for Mr. Pedlow, with a very ill grace and swearing (not under his breath), was losing too. The Countess, reiterating for the hundredth time that Cooley was a “wicked one,” sweetly constituted herself his cup-bearer; kept his glass full and brought him fresh cigars.
Mellin dealt her furious glances, and filled his own glass, for Lady Mount-Rhyswicke plainly had no conception of herself in the role of a Hebe. The hospitable Pedlow, observing this neglect, was moved to chide her.