“No, thank you,” Elfride replied in a tone intended for courteous indifference; but, as a fact, very cavalier indeed.
“Checkmate,” said her opponent without the least emotion.
Oh, the difference between Elfride’s condition of mind now, and when she purposely made blunders that Stephen Smith might win!
It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it would throb itself out of her head, she went off to her chamber, full of mortification at being beaten time after time when she herself was the aggressor. Having for two or three years enjoyed the reputation throughout the globe of her father’s brain—which almost constituted her entire world—of being an excellent player, this fiasco was intolerable; for unfortunately the person most dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that one, the possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not true.
In bed no sleep came to soothe her; that gentle thing being the very middle-of-summer friend in this respect of flying away at the merest troublous cloud. After lying awake till two o’clock an idea seemed to strike her. She softly arose, got a light, and fetched a Chess Praxis from the library. Returning and sitting up in bed, she diligently studied the volume till the clock struck five, and her eyelids felt thick and heavy. She then extinguished the light and lay down again.
“You look pale, Elfride,” said Mrs. Swancourt the next morning at breakfast. “Isn’t she, cousin Harry?”
A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming so when regarded as such by all eyes turning upon her at the table in obedience to some remark. Everybody looked at Elfride. She certainly was pale.
“Am I pale?” she said with a faint smile. “I did not sleep much. I could not get rid of armies of bishops and knights, try how I would.”
“Chess is a bad thing just before bedtime; especially for excitable people like yourself, dear. Don’t ever play late again.”
“I’ll play early instead. Cousin Knight,” she said in imitation of Mrs. Swancourt, “will you oblige me in something?”