“No one did. Lena was above all reserved with her.”
“Camilla Tyrrell knows a good deal more than she is told. Where’s your pebble? You did not stake that?”
“Those who had one were welcome to the other.”
“O, my poor foolish Frank! May it not be gone to tell the same tale of you that you think was told of her? Is this all?”
“Would that it were!”
“Well, go on, my dear. Was she at the ball?”
“Surrounded by all that set. I was long in getting near her, and then she said her card was full; and when I made some desperate entreaty, she said, in an undertone that stabbed me by its very calmness, ‘After what has passed to-day, the less we meet the better.’ And she moved away, so as to cut me off from another word.”
“After what had passed! Was it the parting with the stone?”
“Not only. I got a few words with Lady Tyrrell. She told me that early impressions had given Lena a kind of fanatical horror of betting, and that she had long ago made a sort of vow against a betting man. Lady Tyrrell said she had laughed at it, but had no notion it was seriously meant; and I—I never even heard of it!”
“Nor are you a betting man, my Frank.”