Camilla answered with quick impatience—
"Oh! I couldn't do that, I never go to bed early; and besides, we are going to play bridge to-night. You never play," she said the next moment. "Why, I wonder? Don't you care about the game?"
"I don't care about cards at all," he answered; "a question of habit, I suppose. There was no time for games of any sort in my old life."
"But there is nothing to prevent you enjoying heaps of things now," Mrs. Lancing said restlessly, almost crossly. Then her tone changed. "Let me teach you bridge, it would be such fun! And I don't play half badly for a woman. You shall have your first lesson to-morrow," she decided quite gaily.
Haverford only shook his head.
"I cannot let you waste your time. I shall never play cards."
Camilla felt the warmth and sparkle fade out of her thoughts again.
"Oh," she said, "of course, I remember now! Somebody was telling me only the other day how good you were, that you would never speculate, or bet, or gamble in any shape or form. Lucky man, to be able to take so firm a stand!"
He looked at her quickly; her sneer was unmistakable; he felt uncomfortable and pained, and he suddenly remembered how, as he had sat apart and watched her as she had been playing cards the night before, the expression of her delicately pretty face had given him a sense of trouble, even of uneasiness. Now her words, or rather the tone in which they were said, angered him a little.
They drifted into a silence till the train came, and spoke very little during the journey to the junction, where they were to alight and pick up the London train.