"Be fair, now. I can't trust you where a lady is concerned," Jack replied, while Neil maintained a dignified silence, and, when told to draw first, drew, and lost.
"Your turn next, Trevellian. Hurry up; faint heart never won fair lady. Suppose you try that one," Grey said, indicating, with his finger, one of the two remaining slips.
"I shall not do it; there is some trick about it. You have fixed them. I shall take this," Jack said, and he did, and lost.
"I have won; the lady is mine," Grey cried, exultingly, as he held up the longest slip of paper.
Then, leading the blushing Bessie to her chair, he took his seat opposite her, and continued;
"Now I know you English are never happy unless you play for something, and as none of us, I hope, would play for money, suppose we try for that knot of plaid ribbon at Miss Bessie's throat. I think it exceedingly pretty."
There was a gleam of triumph in the glance which Bessie flashed upon Neil, for she had not quite forgiven him his criticisms upon the ribbon, which both Grey and Jack seemed to admire, and which she consented to give to the victor.
"If your side beats you will draw cuts for the prize," Grey said to Jack; "and if my side beats there is no cut about it, it is mine."
And so the game began, Neil bending every energy to win, and feeling almost as much excited and eager as if it were a fortune at stake, instead of the bit of Scotch ribbon he had affected to dislike. And it did almost seem to him as if he were playing for Bessie herself; playing to keep her from Grey, the very man to whom he had said he would rather give her than to any one else in the world, if she were not for him. The first game was Grey's, the second Neil's; then came the rubber, and Bessie dealt.
"Oh, Bessie," Neil said, in a despairing voice, when he found that he did not hold a single trump, while Jack gave out the second time round, and Grey turned up five points, making six in all.