“I’m cleaned out,” said Arthur. “This singing is beautiful but it doesn’t go well with card-playing. I’m not the only man who has quite lost his head between the two. Card-playing for high stakes and lovely music don’t go well together.”
Gerard listened with attention. The very same idea had entered his own head some time ago, and he wondered how any of the men could keep their attention sufficiently fixed on the cards to play either poker or bridge within hearing of Miss Cora Van Santen.
“That’s just what I should have thought,” said he.
“Of course her two brothers, who are used to the music can keep their heads,” went on Arthur, who rather resented the inroads which the afternoon’s play had made in his allowance; “so they made money, while we lost it.”
Innocently as this was said, the speech struck an unpleasant note in the mind of Gerard, who had grown much more suspicious of late than he was by nature inclined to be. He was pondering the words, when presently he heard Arthur’s voice, behind him, saying with surprise and delight—
“What, you here! I am pleased to meet you. Are you staying here, then?”
“Yes, I’m staying here,” answered a voice which Gerard recognized.
And, in vague horror, he turned to find that this guest at the house of the Van Santens was no other than Rachel Davison. There was a mutual look of alarm in the eyes of the girl and Gerard as he turned sharply and found himself face to face with her.
CHAPTER XIII
The Priory gardens were looking lovely under the rays of the hot sun of the fading August afternoon; but the harmonious tints of tree and lawn, of bank and blossom, faded into an indistinct mass before the eyes of Gerard Buckland as he turned away from Rachel Davison, after a low-voiced greeting which he uttered mechanically, without knowing what he said.