"I ask your pardon! But would you?"
He smiled in spite of himself, something of the old fire of gallantry still burning in his withered veins. "My dear girl, if it were yourself, I would! And by the Lord! I'd play again with Parish, or any other man, if my chance otherwise, merely by cruel circumstances, had been left hopeless. Some one must win."
"But how could the winner be sure? How could the—how did she—I would say—"
"Dear girl, let us not be too cold in our philosophy, nor too wise. I can not say how or why these things go as they do. All I know is that the right man won in that case, and that he proved it later, by each act of kindness he gave her, all her life. This, my dear, is an odd world, when it comes to all that."
"Was he—did he have anybody else in the world who—"
"Oh, only a wife, I believe, that was all!"
"Did she die, soon? Was there ever—"
"How you question! What do you plan for yourself? My word! You are putting me through a strange initiation on our first acquaintance, my dear Countess! Let us not pursue such matters further, or I shall begin to think your own interest in these questions is that of the original Eve!"
"To the victor does not always belong the spoils," she said slowly. "Not till he has won—earned them—in war, in conquest! Perhaps conquest of himself."
[Illustration: "To the victor does not always belong the spoils.">[