"Depends. Of course, it's hard to believe."
"I'm penniless. You don't understand my position here. I'm--nobody. Mrs. Standish took pity on me because I was out of work and brought me here to act as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold."
Trego nodded heavily. "I guessed it. I mean I felt pretty sure you were--well, of another world." He jerked a disrespectful head toward the smiling face of Gosnold House. "The same as me," he added. "That's why I thought . . . But it doesn't matter what I thought."
An unreasonable resentment held her true to the course of her purpose.
"Well, now you know, you must see it's impossible--"
"I don't," he contended stubbornly. "Maybe I'm the devil's advocate, but the way I see it--to begin with, I was playing for money; if I had won I'd have expected you to pay up."
"You would have; that is, Mrs. Gosnold would have paid for you. It was up to her. She meant it that way. She was staking you against the Pride person and myself; that's why you played together; if you and she had lost, she'd have paid for both. So, you see, you may as well quit trying to make me touch that money."
His sophistry baffled her. She shook her head, confused and a little angry in defeat, liking him less than ever.
"Very well. But I don't feel right about it--and I think it most unkind of you."
"Sorry. I only want to play the game as it lies, and this is my idea of doing it."
There was a brief pause while Sally, at a loss, stared out over the shining harbour, now more than ever sensible of the profound, peaceful beauty of its azure floor over which bright sails swung and swayed like slim, tall ladies treading a measure of some stately dance.
"If you ask my definition of unfair play," Trego volunteered, "it's this present attitude of yours--forcing a quarrel on me and getting mad because I stick up for my notion of a square deal!"
"Oh, you misunderstand!" she protested. "I'm only distressed by my conception of what's wrong."
"It's the worst of gambling," he complained: "always winds up in some sort of a row."
"Why not? We've got to do something here to keep from yawning in one another's faces."
"Is there so much of it going on all the time--gambling--here?"
"Oh, not a great deal. Not bad gambling, at least." He smiled faintly. "Not what I call gambling. But I was bred on strong meat--in mining camps--where my father made his money. There men gambled with their lives. Here--_hmp!_" He grunted amusedly. "It's just enough like the real thing to make a fellow restless. Sometimes I wish the old man hadn't struck it quite so rich. If he hadn't, we'd both be happier. As it is, he fluffs around, making a pest of himself in Wall Street because he thinks it's the proper thing. And here am I, instead of earning dividends on what little knowledge I do happen to possess, sticking round with a set of idle egoists, simply because the old man's got his heart set on his son being in society! He won't be happy till he sees me married to one of these--er--women. Sometimes. . ."