"And when will that be, pray?"
Janet hastily cut the cards anew, dealt out five cards, and held out the Queen of Spades to the onlookers.
"When a dark lady enters your life," she said.
"A dark lady has entered my life," he said, his voice vibrating seductively. "Entered it with a very poor opinion of me, it seems. But I shouldn't call her the Queen of Spades. I should call her Janet, the Queen of Clubs."
"Clubs, because I scored so many good hits?"
"No, because a Queen of Spades must have lustrous black eyes, and yours are heavenly gray. Come, let's unmask, and see who's the better fortune teller of the two."
Claude pulled off his mask and stood, handsome and challenging, waiting for her to follow suit.
He was very good to look upon. Handsome, graceful and proud, there was just enough disdain in his perfect manner to make every woman adore him and long to enslave his flawless form. He had wonderful blue eyes, a delicate mouth, a fine nose and a penetrating sympathetic voice. Great ease, great daring and great energy of animal passion gave him a hundred opportunities to show his fine points to excellent advantage. To qualities that almost made riches superfluous, riches were added. No wonder he seemed to be a darling of the gods.
Janet's pulse was distinctly quickened by the telling exterior of this dazzling young man. And when she unfastened her domino and met his glance with her fearless gray eyes, his thrilling moment came. He was not greatly impressed with her looks, his social training having biased him towards more fashionable types of beauty. Yet a magnetic ecstacy set him on fire and sent rapturous messages throbbing along his nerves.
It was an enthralling moment, one that seemed mysteriously to link up his being with other blissful moments in previous existences. Strange! Each time that he experienced this emotion anew, he was sure it was unique, sure it was not in this life that he had experienced it before. Stranger still, though it was as deep as the full flooded river of life itself, it was as transitory as an electric spark or a flash of lightning. The moment was poignant, intoxicating, miraculous; yet by no fraction of an instant could it be prolonged.