Also it suggested possibilities. It was some
years since they had matched their wits against each other, and the last
time she rather won out--because all the cards were hers, as well as the
_mise en scene_. And she had left--
His thought trailed off into silence; and the silence lasted so long,
and he sat so still, that the ash fell unnoticed from his cigarette; and
presently the cigarette burned itself into the tip, and to his fingers.
He tossed it into the tray and laughed quietly.
Rare days--those days of the vanished protocol and its finding! He could
almost wish that they might be again; with a different _mise en scene_,
and a different ending--and a different client for his. He was becoming
almost sentimental--and he was too old a bird for sentiment, and quite
too old at this game; which had not any sentiment about it that was not
pretence and sham. Yet it was a good game--a mighty entertaining game;
where one measured wits with the best, and took long chances, and played
for high stakes; men's lives and a nation's honour.
He picked up the photograph and regarded it thoughtfully.
"And what are to be the stakes now, I wonder," he mused. "It's another
deal of the same old cards, but who are players? If America is one,
then, my lady, we shall see who will win this time--if you're in it; and
I take it you are, else why this picture.
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