"I see your point. But it's not whist."
"Am I to play, or not?" said Aunt Constance. She looked across at her partner, as a serious player rather amused at the childish behaviour of their opponents. A sympathetic bond was thereby established—solid seriousness against frivolity.
"Fire away!" said Gwen. "Second player plays lowest." Miss Dickenson played the Queen. "That's not whist, aunty," said Gwen triumphantly. Her partner played the King. "There now, you see!" said Gwen. She belonged to the class of players who rejoice aloud, or show depression, after success or failure.
This time her exultation was premature. Mr. Pellew, without emotion, pushed the turn-up card, a two, into the trick, saying to his partner:—"Your Queen was all right. Quite correct!" The story does not vouch for this. It may have been wrong.
"Do you mean to say, Cousin Percy"—thus Gwen, with indignant emphasis—"that you've not got a club in your hand, at the very first round. You cannot expect us to believe that!" Mr. Pellew pointed out that if he revoked he would lose three tricks. "Very well," said Gwen. "I shall keep a very sharp look out." But no revoke came, and she had to console herself as a loser with the reflection that it was only the odd trick, after all—one by cards and honours divided.
This is a fair sample of the way this game went on establishing a position of moral superiority for Mr. Pellew and his partner, who looked down on the irregularities of their opponents from a pinnacle of True Whist. Their position as superior beings tended towards mutual understandings. A transition state from their relations in that easy-going life at the Towers to the more sober obligations of the metropolis was at least acceptable; and this isolation by a better understanding of tricks and trumps, a higher and holier view of ruffing and finessing, appeared to provide such a state. There was partnership of souls in it, over and above mere vulgar scoring.
Nothing of interest occurred until, in the course of the second rubber, Gwen made a misdeal. Probably she did so because she was trying at the same time to prove that having four by honours was absurd in itself—an affront to natural laws. It was the merest accident, she maintained, when all the court-cards were dealt to one side—no merit at all of the players. Her objection to whist was that it was a mixture of skill and chance. She was inclined to favour games that were either quite the one or quite the other. Roulette was a good game. So was chess. But whist was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.... Misdeal! The analysis of games stopped with a jerk, the dealer being left without a turn-up card.
"But what a shame!" said Gwen. "Is it fair I should lose my deal when the last card's an ace? How would any of you like it?" The appeal was too touching to resist, though Mr. Pellew again said this wasn't whist. A count of the hands showed that Aunt Constance held one card too few and Gwen one too many. A question arose. If a card were drawn from the dealer's hand, was the trump to remain on the table? Controversy ensued. Why should not the drawer have her choice of thirteen cards, as in every analogous case? On the other hand, said Gwen, that ace of hearts was indisputably the last card in the pack; and therefore the trump-card, by predestination.
Mr. Pellew pointed out that it mattered less than Miss Dickenson thought, as if she pitched on this very ace to make up her own thirteen, its teeth would be drawn. It would be no longer a turn-up card, and some new choice of trumps would have to be made, somehow; by sortes Virgilianæ, or what not. Better have another deal. Gwen gave up the point, under protest, and Miss Dickenson dealt. Spades were trumps, this time.
It chanced that Gwen, in this deal, held the Knave and Queen of hearts. She led the Knave, and only waiting for the next card, to be sure that it was a low one, said deliberately to her partner:—"Don't play your King, Cousin Clo; Percy's got the ace," in defiance of all rule and order.