He extended a shapely white hand. “Good night, then. I must not detain you. Perhaps to-morrow you will allow me the pleasure of teaching you how to play cards?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” she said, seriously; “they do lots of harm; but I’ll teach you a very funny thing if you can find some dominoes.”
He gravely assured her that he would be charmed, and was just about leaving her when he hesitated and turned back. “I beg your pardon, but I heard Captain Fordyce call you by a very odd and pretty name.”
“What was it?” she asked, wonderingly.
“Nina Stephana, or Stephanie, was it?”
“Oh! Nina Stephana,—he sometimes says it. Stephana is my middle name.”
“Indeed, it is a pleasing one. Strange that it should be the feminine of your husband’s name.”
“Yes,” said Nina, guardedly, “Esteban is certainly the Spanish for Stephen.”
“It seems as if your parents must have known of your approaching fate,” he remarked, mildly, and without emphasis.
“Yes, doesn’t it?” she replied, naïvely.