“And dear Mr. Hummel?” asked Mrs. Stoker, taking Mrs. Hummel’s hand in both of hers.
“Hummel’s in bed,” said Jennie, tersely; “Mrs. Stoker, I’ll play to-night.”
A moment’s silence, as of a solitude; then a great hubbub, the guests making for tables.
“So glad!” cried Mrs. Stoker; “we’ve always hoped you would!”
“So glad!” shrieked all the women into Mrs. Hummel’s ear; and the games began.
Why dwell on the mad scramble? That night was the culmination. Disgraceful as was the thing in itself, it pales before the disgrace incident to a mood of reckless confession which seized the company. Somebody blurted out that she’d win that two hundred or die. Then a nigh insane man in a corner shouted across the room, to the shocking of all: “Let’s make it poker!”
The laugh that greeted this was spasmodic; and all at once right before Mrs. Hummel on the central table, Mr. Stoker, as though he had lost his mind, and grown wild and cynical, began to deal out—ten-dollar bills from his deck. These Mr. Wheelock snatched up and shook aloft with fearful merriment under the chandelier.
In that instant the boom collapsed. Who could predict the psychological moment? The sight of the ten-dollar bills was too much. Shame rushed into every breast; the reaction began; and henceforth in the hands of everybody but Mrs. Hummel (who, brain on fire, had failed to catch the significance of the moment), euchre fell a limp and lifeless thing.
And that alone is why the preacher’s wife, who scarcely knew her bowers, won the bedroom set.
A sudden, fierce knocking at the door, and in burst an officer.