"I don't know. He is with Silvette so much; he is such a dear boy——"
"Tell him plainly we don't want her. I like her myself, but there's better material.... Other things aside, I don't want my boy to marry a girl who plays cards the way she does."
"Jacob! You don't mean——"
"No, no! She's as square as a die; but she wins too much, stakes too much—smokes too much, drinks too many cocktails—she and her sister, too. Why, they've won steadily at cards from the beginning. They've a genius for it. I never saw such playing. Poor cards don't worry them; and they never take the shadow of advantage, never whine, never ask questions; there's never an impatient word, a look of protest—and the judge and the colonel are beasts to play with!—and if there ever seems to be the slightest doubt or indication of a dispute over any point, those girls instantly concede it—cheerfully, too! They're clean-cut sports—thoroughbred.... But, by God! I don't want Jack to marry a gambler!"
He stood up, his glasses glistening, his little burned eyes fixed on space.
"No," he said; "I've done all the gambling that will be done in this family. I'll do a little more—enough to put the bits on one or two men in New York whose wives could make it easy for my children, if they cared to. Then I'm done, mother."
She bent her head, and her lips moved.
"What?" he said, hand to his ear.
"I was only thinking, Jacob, that I would be happy when you have finished with—business."
"Don't worry, dear." He put one arm around her—a thin arm in its loose coat sleeve, thin as a tempered steel rod. She laid her faded face against it, comforted by its inflexibility.