"That's rather high, but still not enough. Bid again!"
"For _my_ sake!" It was nearly a whisper, but he heard. His eyes were triumphantly bright as, deftly eluding his curving arm, she sped swiftly away in the benign darkness. But it was a different glow from any which had ever irradiated them before: This was that of a soft, sweet tenderness that vaguely soothed even while strongly disconcerting him. He was very quiet under the spell of it as he went into supper, and noticeably distrait during the game of chess which he subsequently played with Mrs. Brevoort in the big living room later on.
Beating him with ridiculous ease she declined another game, saying, laughingly: "You are not in form to-night, Mr. Douglass, and I like victories more difficult of achievement. Time was when I was content with mere winning, no matter how easy the attainment of that end. But this life out here has spoiled me for inanities forever. I have still the insatiable desire for conquest, but now I want to go up against odds and win, to bring into camp only opponents worthy of my steel."
"But that," he said, with conventional politeness, "is unthinkable. There can be none entirely worthy of you!" She made a little _moué_ at the wearisome compliment.
"Why do all men say the same things! I'm quite sure I've heard something like that a hundred times before. In fact, I've come three thousand miles to get away from it. Say something original, please, even if it be something wicked!"
He looked at her queerly but she met his gaze with eyes as audacious as her words. Over at the piano Grace was playing with much tender feeling one of Chopin's delicious nocturnes; before the open fireplace, Carter, Brevoort and McVey were discussing the possibilities of a well-managed ranch. The big room with its happy combination of modern and primitive amenities was the epitome of cheerfulness and comfort.
"Original? No man can say anything that is that. The possibilities were exhausted centuries ago. Even. Sin is stereotyped. There have always been women like you and men like me! What on earth could a man in my position say to a woman in yours that would be acceptably wicked?"
She smiled inscrutably; there was no abstraction in his manner now. "And yet you are so bold in other things!" she said, tauntingly. "To the brave all things are possible."