‘If you will be so kind,’ said Sophia, dealing. ‘For the twenty-first time you have cut exactly eighteen cards.’
An hour later it was broad day; the birds were awake, and the footman was asleep. The Prince still looked fresh enough, but his chin (he had arrived too late to shave before dinner) was dark with his twenty-four hours’ beard; but Sophia looked as fresh and brilliant as a child glowing from its morning bath. A little excitement burned in her beautiful eyes, and her breath came slightly quicker than its wont. But the risen sun, still cool and invigorating, shone searchingly on the smooth white skin of her half-turned face as if to find some ravage wrought by this unnatural night, and confessed its impotence. She was radiant, an embodiment of the goddess of the morning, and, looking up, Prince Petros was fairly blinded with her. He hesitated—it was towards the end of the game—failed to count the remaining tricks, and she put down in turn the three and the four beziques.
‘Admirable,’ he said; ‘I made a bad mistake. I have paid for it. Yes, you rubicon me as well. Yet, believe me, I have not played so rotten a card for years.’
‘You are very modest,’ said she, ‘for you said you were only a beginner. Yet I like modesty in a man.’
‘I am more fortunate than I deserve,’ said he.
Once or twice during the next game he passed his hand over his chin, and frowned. At last he could bear it no more, and at the end of the game, ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said, ‘for ten minutes—it shall not be more, I swear to you—I will get shaved, if my idle scoundrel of a valet has not gone to bed, then I will return to you. I am no sight for the morning. But you—you look like morning itself,’ and again he gazed at her.
She met his eye, then dropped her own, and played with the cards a moment. Then she rose, and breaking out into a laugh:
‘I am beaten,’ she said, ‘and I retract my words. Oh, Prince, I would play with you till the crack of Judgment; but if I stop for ten minutes I shall be asleep. Let us make a bargain; you want to stop for ten minutes, and for me that is impossible. We will yield to each other, and thus there is no yielding. Let us both agree to stop.’
‘I have no wish but yours,’ said he. ‘And indeed an hour or two of sleep would be refreshing. I travelled all yesterday.’
Sophia stretched herself gracefully, like a fawn that is stiff with lying down. Then she looked round the room, and broke into a little suppressed bubble of laughter.