“I’m not going broke on any señoritas—not even my own girl!”
“Have you no newer thing than poverty to tell me? Now if you look at me like that I cannot shuffle properly.”
“How am I to look, please?” He held his glance on her.
“Not foolish like a boy. There, take them, then!” She threw the cards at him, blushing and perturbed by his eyes, while he scrambled to punish her across the table.
“Generous one!” she said. “Ardent pretender! He won’t let me shuffle because he fears to lose.”
“You shall have a silk handkerchief with flowers on it,” said he, shuffling.
“I have two already. I can see you arranging those cards, miser!”
It was the custom of their meetings, whether at the cabin or whether she stole out to his camp, to play for the token he should bring for her when he next came from town. She named one thing, he some other, and the cards judged between them. And to see Genesmere in these hours, his oldest friend could not have known him any more than he knew himself. Never had a woman been for him like Lolita, conjuring the Saxon to forget himself and bask openly in that Southern joy and laughter of the moment.
“Say my name!” he ordered; and at the child effort she made over “Russ” he smiled with delight. “Again!” he exclaimed, bending to catch her R and the whole odd little word she made. “More!”