"You can't expect to learn it all at once." "You might try not to make it harder for me." Again had I been a third person of fair discernment, I believe I should have sworn that I caught in her eyes a gleam of hardened, relentless determination; but she only pointed to a four of hearts which I was neglecting to play up.
"Why not play the game to win ?" she asked, and there was that in her voice which was like to undo me--a tone and the merest fanning of my face by her loose sleeve as she pointed to the card.
Suddenly I knew that honor was not in me.

She walked within my lines in imminent peril of the deadliest character.

But there was no sign of fear in the look she held me with, and I knew she had not sensed her danger.
"You should play your stupid game to win," she repeated terribly.

"You are too ingenious at finding balm in defeat." That little golden roughness in her voice seemed to grate on my bared heart.

I left her eyes with a last desperate appeal to the game.