Fran wouldn't tell him.
He bent lower. "Oh, I see, I see!" he cried. "This is me—" he drew a card from the pack—"the King of Hearts." He held it up triumphantly. "Well. And you are the Queen of Hearts, you said."
"Maybe I am," said Fran, rather breathlessly, "but whose hearts are we king and queen of? That's what I want to find out." And she showed her teeth at him.
"We can draw and see," he suggested, sinking upon one knee. "And yet, since you're the queen and I'm the king, it must be each other's hearts—"
He stopped abruptly at sight of her crimsoned cheeks.
"That doesn't always follow," Fran told him hastily; "not by any means. For here are other queens. See the Queen of Spades? Maybe you'll get her. Maybe you want her. You see, she either goes to you, or to the next card."
"But I don't want any Queen of Spades," Abbott declared. He drew the next card, and exclaimed dramatically, "Saved, saved! Here's Bob. Give her to Bob Clinton."
"Oh, Abbott!" Fran exclaimed, looking at him with starlike eyes and roselike cheeks, making the most fascinating picture he had ever beheld at midnight under a silver moon. "Do you mean that? Remember you're on a new bridge over running water."
Abbott paused uneasily. She looked less like a child than he had ever seen her. Her body was very slight—but her face was…It is marvelous how much of a woman's seriousness was to be found in this girl. She seemed inclined to give her words about the foolish cards a woman's significance. He rose with the consciousness that for a moment he had rather forgotten himself.
He reminded her gravely—"We are talking about cards—just cards."