"Listen to me, Condy," answered Blix; and for quite five minutes, while he interrupted and protested and pshawed and argued, she talked to him calmly and quietly.
"I don't ask you to stop playing, Condy," she said, as she finished; "I just ask you that when you feel you must play--or--Imean, when you want to very bad, you will come and play with me, instead of playing at your club.""But it's absurd, it's preposterous. I hate to see a girl gambling--and you of all girls!""It's no worse for me than it is for you and--well, do you suppose I would play with any one else? Maybe you think I can't play well enough to make it interesting for you," she said gayly. "Is that it? I can soon show you, Condy Rivers--never mind when I learned how.""But, Blix, you don't know how often we play, those men and I.
Why, it is almost every--you don't know how often we play.""Condy, whenever you want to play, and will play with ME, no matter what I've got in hand, I'll stop everything and play with you.""But why?"
"Because I think, Condy, that THIS way perhaps you won't play quite so often at first; and then little by little perhaps--perhaps--well, never mind that now. I want to play; put it that way. But I want you to promise me never to play with any one else--say for six months."And in the end, whipped by a sense of shame, Condy made her the promise. They became very gay upon the instant.
"Hoh!" exclaimed Condy; "what do YOU know of poker? I think we had best play old sledge or cassino."Blix had dealt a hand and partitioned the chips.
"Straights and flushes BEFORE the draw," she announced calmly.
Condy started and stared; then, looking at her askance, picked up his hand.
"It's up to you."
"I'll make it five to play."
"Five? Very well. How many cards?"
"Three."
"I'll take two."
"Bet you five more."
Blix looked at her hand. Then, without trace of expression in her voice or face, said:
"There's your five, and I ll raise you five.""Five better."
"And five better than that."
"Call you."
"Full house. Aces on tens," said Blix, throwing down her cards.
"Heavens! they're good as gold," muttered Condy as Blix gathered in the chips.
An hour later she had won all the chips but five.
"Now we'll stop and get to fishing again; don't you want to?"He agreed, and she counted the chips.
"Condy, you owe me seven dollars and a half," she announced.
Condy began to smile. "Well," he said jocosely, "I'll send you around a check to-morrow."But at this Blix was cross upon the instant. "You wouldn't do that--wouldn't talk that way with one of your friends at the club!" she exclaimed; "and it's not right to do it with me.
Condy, give me seven dollars and a half. When you play cards with me it's just as though it were with another man. I would have paid you if you had won.""But I haven't got more than nine dollars. Who'll pay for the supper to-night at Luna's, and our railroad fare going home?""I'll pay."
"But I--I can't afford to lose money this way.""Shouldn't have played, then. I took the same chances as you.
Condy, I want my money."
"You--you--why you've regularly flimflammed me.""Will you give me my money?"
"Oh, take your money then!"
Blix shut the money in her purse, and rose, dusting her dress.
"Now," she said--"now that the pastime of card-playing is over, we will return to the serious business of life, which is the catching--no, ' KILLING'of lake trout."At five o'clock in the afternoon, Condy pulled up the anchor of railroad iron and rowed back to Richardson's. Blix had six trout to her credit, but Condy's ill-luck had been actually ludicrous.
"I can hold a string in the water as long as anybody," he complained, "but I'd like to have the satisfaction of merely changing the bait OCCASIONALLY. I've not had a single bite--not a nibble, y' know, all day. Never mind, you got the big trout, Blix; that first one. That five minutes was worth the whole day.
It's been glorious, the whole thing. We'll come down here once a week right along now."But the one incident that completed the happiness of that wonderful day occurred just as they were getting out of the boat on the shore by Richardson's. In a mud-hole between two rocks they discovered a tiny striped snake, hardly bigger than a lead pencil, in the act of swallowing a little green frog, and they passed a rapt ten minutes in witnessing the progress of this miniature drama, which culminated happily in the victim's escape, and triumph of virtue.
"That," declared Blix as they climbed into the old buggy which was to take them to the train, "was the one thing necessary. That made the day perfect."They reached the city at dusk, and sent their fish, lunch-basket, and rods up to the Bessemers' flat by a messenger boy with an explanatory note for Blix's father.
"Now," said Condy, "for Luna's and the matrimonial objects."
