A half-hour afterward, she came into my room with a chess-board, and asked me if I played the game. I was delighted to try it with her, though I was poor enough at it, and she beat me easily.
She was quite as charming as ever, but, as I studied my strategy, she had time in the silent pauses to fall into little moods of reverie, letting the talk drop naturally. I was not too absorbed in my play to notice it, and once or twice I looked up from the board to see her face show a tragic expression, clearing, under my surveillance, with what seemed to be a forced smile. The little lines near her eyes seemed to have deepened since morning, and two vertical ones came, at times, cutting upright clefts between her brows. Once or twice she put her hand to her head suddenly. Her listlessness accented her grace, but she seemed distinctly older.
After she had announced mate in three moves she awaited my capitulation. Then she put the board and men aside wearily.
"You'll find it desperately stupid here, I know, Mr. Castle," she began. "I wish we could be more amusing, but I'm a bit blue to-night."
"I only reproach myself for not being able to make you forget it," I said. "As for myself, I always feel like the hero of a fairy tale when you're about."
She gave her head a quick, backward shake, as if to free her mind of some disturbing thought. "Oh, I told you I was the White Cat, you know!" she replied. "Can't you imagine how interesting it must be for us to have any one here at all, and you most especially? Why, I feel that you are a friend, already. If it hadn't been so, I shouldn't have dared to confess so frankly that I'm depressed."
"What can I possibly say of you, then, who have proved yourself so friendly? I shall be glad when it comes my turn to give, and yours to receive."
"Oh, that time will come soon enough, I'm afraid," she said, folding her hands in her lap, and looking down at them.
"You make me quite long for it!"
"Oh, don't long for it!" she exclaimed, and then rose nervously to stand facing the lamp with a fixed, entranced gaze. "It will mean, perhaps, that I shall need all your sympathy, all your charity," she added, turning, ever so slowly, to look down at me.