"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they don't even know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by.
Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself.
For half an hour, there was no more talking.
Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril.
"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone."
A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that might be pushed to queen and save her game.
"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!"
"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost--once missed--we may struggle on without it--we may push little chances forward to partial amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone."
As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate.
Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things she had brought from washing.
Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him into the instant's forgetfulness?
However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces over the little board and its mystic pieces.
One, pale--downcast--with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving--looking on.
"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em--or to see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!"
They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with.