Chapter XIV
An indifferent swimmer, Donald Ware had avoided the afternoon sport in
the tank; but after dinner, somewhat to the irritation of Graham, the
violinist monopolized Paula at the piano. New guests, with the casual
expectedness of the Big House, had drifted in--a lawyer, by name
Adolph Well, who had come to confer with Dick over some big water-
right suit; Jeremy Braxton, straight from Mexico, Dick's general
superintendent of the Harvest Group, which bonanza, according to
Jeremy Braxton, was as "unpetering" as ever; Edwin O'Hay, a red-headed
Irish musical and dramatic critic; and Chauncey Bishop, editor and
owner of the San Francisco Dispatch, and a member of Dick's
class and frat, as Graham gleaned.
Dick had started a boisterous gambling game which he called "Horrible
Fives," wherein, although excitement ran high and players plunged, the
limit was ten cents, and, on a lucky coup, the transient banker might
win or lose as high as ninety cents, such coup requiring at least ten
minutes to play out. This game went on at a big table at the far end
of the room, accompanied by much owing and borrowing of small sums and
an incessant clamor for change.
With nine players, the game was crowded, and Graham, rather than draw
cards, casually and occasionally backed Ernestine's cards, the while
he glanced down the long room at the violinist and Paula Forrest
absorbed in Beethoven Symphonies and Delibes' Ballets. Jeremy Braxton
was demanding raising the limit to twenty cents, and Dick, the
heaviest loser, as he averred, to the tune of four dollars and sixty
cents, was plaintively suggesting the starting of a "kitty" in order
that some one should pay for the lights and the sweeping out of the
place in the morning, when Graham, with a profound sigh at the loss of
his last bet--a nickel which he had had to pay double--announced to
Ernestine that he was going to take a turn around the room to change
his luck.
"I prophesied you would," she told him under her breath.
"What?" he asked.
She glanced significantly in Paula's direction.
"Just for that I simply must go down there now," he retorted.
"Can't dast decline a dare," she taunted.
"If it were a dare I wouldn't dare do it."
"In which case I dare you," she took up.
He shook his head: "I had already made up my mind to go right down
there to that one spot and cut that fiddler out of the running. You
can't dare me out of it at this late stage. Besides, there's Mr. O'Hay
waiting for you to make your bet."
Ernestine rashly laid ten cents, and scarcely knew whether she won or
lost, so intent was she on watching Graham go down the room, although
she did know that Bert Wainwright had not been unobservant of her gaze
and its direction. On the other hand, neither she nor Bert, nor any
other at the table, knew that Dick's quick-glancing eyes, sparkling
with merriment while his lips chaffed absurdities that made them all
laugh, had missed no portion of the side play.
Ernestine, but little taller than Paula, although hinting of a plus
roundness to come, was a sun-healthy, clear blonde, her skin sprayed
with the almost transparent flush of maidenhood at eighteen. To the
eye, it seemed almost that one could see through the pink daintiness
of fingers, hand, wrist, and forearm, neck and cheek. And to this
delicious transparency of rose and pink, was added a warmth of tone
that did not escape Dick's eyes as he glimpsed her watch Evan Graham
move down the length of room. Dick knew and classified her wild
imagined dream or guess, though the terms of it were beyond his
divination.
What she saw was what she imagined was the princely walk of Graham, the high, light, blooded carriage of his head, the delightful carelessness of the gold-burnt, sun-sanded hair that made her fingers ache to be into with caresses she for the first time knew were possible of her fingers.