UPON A CARPET
"For some reason," the scholar explained, "my daughter has asked me to take a hand."
"Oh," said Ferrier blankly, and for the first time he looked at Carron.
"Mr. Carron—Mr. Ferrier," Blanche said. The fact that they had met before had evidently slipped her mind in some greater absorption, and neither one or the other found words to remind her of it. They shook hands. Ferrier's was limp. Carron felt rather dazed when he thought of how naturally they had encountered first, how plainly they had discussed the facts of their greatest interest. They had seen each other angry, drunk; they had parted familiar antagonists; and here the woman had raised up the social barrier between them, making them strangers.
"You are to sit here, father, and Bert, you opposite," she said. So calmly she disposed of men, like fate! Ferrier gave her another mute glance. He looked as if he were about to assert some right that had always been his, but then he yielded and took the place appointed him.
The four sat down together, four fronting one another in a hollow square, for two hours to look only from the faces of the cards to one another's faces. Only people on very good terms, or the merest strangers, can face one another in such fashion
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