“Sure, he might, sor; ’twas mesilf thinking that same; and I wint beyant to the observation-car, and there the ould gintleman was smoking.”
“And you stopped to tell yarns to that other gentleman instead of getting back and following—”
“No, sor, I beg your pardon, sor; I was kaping me eyes open and on him; for himsilf was in the observation-car where you are now, sor, until we come in, and thin he walked back, careless like, to his own car. Will I be afther following him?”
“Yes; don’t lose him.”
They did not lose him; they both saw him enter the drawing-room and almost immediately come out and sit down in one of the open sections.
“See if you can’t find out from the conductor where he is going,” the colonel proposed to Haley; and he frowned over his thoughts for a bad quarter of an hour at the window. The precipitate of all this mental ferment was a determination to stick close to the boy, saying nothing. He hoped that when they stopped over night at Salt Lake City, according to Aunt Rebecca’s plan, they might shake off the “brother’s” company. The day passed uneventfully. He played bridge with Mrs. Millicent and Miss Smith and Archie, while Aunt Rebecca kept up her French with one of Bentzon’s novels.
Afterward she said grimly to him: “I think you must have been converted out in the Philippines; you never so much as winced, that last hand; no, you sat there smiling over your ruin as sweetly as if you enjoyed it.”
The colonel smiled again. “Ah, but, you see, I did enjoy it; didn’t you notice the hand? No? Well, it was worth watching. It was the rubber game; they were twenty-four and we were twenty-six and we were on the seventh round; Miss Smith had made it hearts. She sat on my left, dummy on my right. Millicent had the lead. She had four little spades, a little club, the queen of hearts and a trey; dummy had the queen, the ten and the nine of spades, it had the king of hearts and three clubs with the jack at the top. I had a lovely diamond suit which I hadn’t had a chance to touch, top sequence, ace, king, queen; I had the jack of trumps and the jack of spades; and the queen and a little club. I hadn’t a lead, you understand; Millicent had taken five tricks and they had taken one; they needed six to win the game, we needed two; see? Well, Millicent hadn’t any diamonds to lead me, and unhappily she didn’t think to lead trumps through dummy, which would have made a world of difference. She led a club; dummy put on the jack. I knew Miss Smith had the ace and one low heart; no clubs, a lot of low diamonds, and she might or might not have a spade. I figured that she had the ace and a little one; if she would trump in with the little one, as ninety-nine out of a hundred women would have done, her ace and her partner’s king would fall together; or, at worst, he would have to trump her diamond lead, after she had led out her king of spades, and lead spades, which I could trump and bring in all my diamonds. Do you take in the situation?”
“You mean that Janet had the king of spades alone, the ace and the little trump and four worthless diamonds? I see. It is a chance for the grand coup; I reckon she played it.”
“She did!” cried the colonel with unction. “She slapped that ace on the trick, she modestly led her king of spades, gathered in my jack, then ‘she stole, she stole my child away,’ my little jack of trumps; it fell on dummy’s king, and dummy led out his spades and I had to see that whole diamond suit slaughtered. They made their six tricks, the game and the rubber; and I wanted to clap my hands over the neatness of it.”