UPON A CARPET
to attach meaning to every action, look or word the other spoke, as if each knew well enough what was the dominating thought in the other's mind. Mrs. Rader, silent in her corner, watched and more than watched Blanche Rader at the card table, bright with the mysterious elation that cards could never account for, nor candles, nor wood-fire. They were a background, and a background for mere enjoyment. In arranging the things and drawing people around the table she seemed to have accomplished her ambition. She looked at Ferrier and she smiled at him, but rather less than she looked and smiled at her father. Carron could not feel sure in what way she looked and smiled at himself. He had too keen a sense of her appearance, and his mind was distracted trying to discover why she was beautiful. He watched the movement of her arms and hands against the dark surface of the table, while her fingers let through the red and white and black stream of the cards; questioned her eyes, which laughed; the intonation of her voice when she spoke. The matter was past finding out. The explanation might lurk beyond visible things, in the heart of her mood. And there was a veil between her mood and theirs. At moments she seemed to draw him near it, but then the faces of the others would divide his thought. They were sitting among other people,
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