Now she stared moodily at the ground; now she flung herself back; then she twisted nervously to the right, and then a moment afterwards to the left; and then again she stared in front of her, swinging a satin slipper backwards and forwards against the pavement with the petulance of a child.

All her movements were spasmodic; she was on the verge of hysteria.

Ricardo was expecting her to burst into tears, when she sprang up and as swiftly as she had come she hurried back into the rooms.

"Summer lightning," thought Mr.
Ricardo.
Near to him a woman sneered, and a man said, pityingly: "She was pretty, that little one.

It is regrettable that she has lost." A few minutes afterwards Ricardo finished his cigar and strolled back into the rooms, making his way to the big table just on the right hand of the entrance, where the play as a rule runs high.