"I was going to say," she replied, in quite her customary tone, "that I don't think this American lady would be a very safe friend, and that I don't think she feels kindly towards your uncle. There was something malicious in her tone. Is your uncle uneasy about his son?"
The question put George into a difficulty, and Harriet, with unfailing tact, perceived in a moment that it had done so. "I remember," she said, "the tone in which Mr. Felton wrote of his son, in his first letter, was not favourable to him; but this is a family matter, George, and you are quite right not to tell me about it."
"Thank you, Mrs. Routh," said George. "You are always right, and always kind. I must tell my uncle what has passed this evening. Thus much I may say to you. He has had no news of his son lately, and will be very glad to receive any."
"I don't think he will be glad to receive news of his son through her," said Harriet. All the time this conversation lasted she had been scanning the crowd through which they were moving, and noting every fresh arrival.
"Shall we go into the gardens? the lights look pretty," she continued.
George acquiesced, and they passed through the wide doors and down the broad steps into the gay scene over which the tranquil starlit sky spread a canopy of deep cloudless blue; the blue of tempered steel; the dark blue of the night, which is so solemnly beautiful.
"Are you always so successful?" a voice, pitched to a low and expressive key, said to a lady, who sat, an hour later that night, with a heap of gold and silver beside her, under the brilliant light which streamed down over the gaming-tables and their occupants, but lighted up no such dauntless, bright, conquering beauty as hers. The man who had spoken stood behind her; his hand rested on the back of her chair, and was hidden in the folds of the laced drapery which fell over her dress. She gave him an upward, backward flash of her black eyes, and answered:
"Always, and in everything. I invariably play to win. But sometimes I care little for the game, and tire of it in the winning. Now, for instance, I am tired of this."
"Will you leave it, then?"
"Of course," and she rose as she spoke, took up her money, dropped it with a laugh into a silver-net bag, a revival of the old gypsin, which hung at her waist, and, drawing her lace drapery round her, moved away. The man who had spoken followed her closely and silently. She passed into one of the saloons, and out into a long balcony, on which a row of windows opened, and which overlooked the gardens filled with groups of people.