"Natural," she said, and as she said it, she saw that she had flicked one of her hundred-pound counters over the line, and it was staked. Almost simultaneously she caught Alington's eye; almost simultaneously Tom's voice said:
"One fifty. Well done, Kit! You've had the worst of luck all the evening."
"A fine, bold stroke," said Alington in his precise tones, still looking at her. "Luck must turn, Lady Conybeare."
For one moment Kit paused, and in that pause she was lost. Alington counted out her stake, pushed it over to her, and rose.
"A thrilling end to my bank," he said. "The first big stake this evening. Thank you, Lady Conybeare, for introducing big stakes. The game was getting a little slow."
And he went to the side-table for a cigarette.
Kit had cheated, and she knew it, and she suspected Alington knew it. She had neither meant, intended, contemplated, nor conceived possible such a thing, yet the thing was done. In point of fact, she had done it quite unwittingly. She had never intended to push her counters over the line with the edge of her cards. But then had followed—and she knew this, too—an appreciable moment in which she perceived what had happened before Tom's voice broke in. But she had not been able to say at once, "I have made a mistake; I only staked fifty." After that each possible division of a single second made speech infinitely more impossible. To hesitate then was to be lost. Thirty seconds later her stake was paid, and to say then what had happened was not only impossible, but inconceivable. Besides, she thought to herself with a sudden relief, it was wholly unnecessary. She would tell Alington about it quite candidly, and return the money. But it was a poor ending to the evening on which she and Alice were going to watch him to see if he cheated.
That moment when she did not speak was psychologically more important than Kit knew. She had lived in the world some five-and-twenty years, and for five-and-twenty years her instincts had been forming. But during those years she had not formed an instinct of absolute, unwavering, instantaneous honesty. Before now she had been in positions where there was a choice between the perfectly upright course and the course ever so slightly crooked, and had she known the history of her soul, she would have been aware that when she had stuck to the absolutely upright line she had done so after reflection. Then came this moment when there was no time for reflection, and the habit of looking at her decisions as ever so faintly debatable had asserted itself. She had paused to consider what she should do. That, in such circumstances, was quite sufficient.
That she was ashamed was natural; that she was angry was to her more natural still. She felt that the thing had been forced on her, and so in a manner, if we take into consideration all the instincts which were undoubtedly hers at that moment, it was; how far she was to be held responsible for those instincts is a question for psychologists and those who have got to the bottom of the problem of original sin, but not for story-tellers.
She had a great command over herself, and she gathered up her stakes with a laugh. There had been no perceptible pause of any kind.