M. de Kerbec uttered a meek “Oh!” of expostulation.
“I feel for you, Jack—I do indeed,” said Mme. de Kerbec. “The idea of having a partner that trumps one’s ace the second round!”
“Dear me! I thought it was the third round,” said Mrs. Monteagle; “that was why I risked my little trump.”
“Then you deserved to lose your little trump!” said Mme. de Kerbec. “You should have trumped high if you trumped at all; third in hand always plays high!”
“Ma chère amie,” put in meekly M. de Kerbec, “one plays as one can; my partner may not have any high trumps.”
“Good heavens! count,” screamed his wife, “the idea of your exposing your partner’s hand in this way!”
“Ma chère amie, I am not exposing it; I merely suggest that—”
“Hold your tongue, count! What business have you to suggest? What sort of whist is this? I thought whist meant hush; and you have done nothing but chatter ever since we sat down.”
When Mme. de Kerbec addressed her husband as “count,” those who knew M. de Kerbec felt for him; when she called him “Jack” they congratulated him. His real name was Jacques; but though she had been married to him for thirty years, and lived nearly all that time in France, his wife had never modified her hard English ring of the soft French name, hammering it out with three k’s at the end.
“It sounds so uncommonly like whack” Col. Redacre used to say, “that I feel for poor Kerbec, as if I saw the stick coming down on him.”