The venerable statesman opposed to her all at once felt his resources going.  He knew that his quest was over, that this young woman was after all able to fend for herself.

“What would you do?” she demanded of him.  “If you were a woman and knew you were merely coveted in general, as a woman, and that you had been just cheaply played for in a game of cards, in a public place—­what would you do, if you could, to the man who lost—­or the man who won?  Would you be delivered over?  That woman, was she—­but she could not help herself; she had no place to turn, poor girl?  And she paid all her life, then, for some act earlier, which left her fair game?  Was that it?”

“But you, my dear girl!  It is impossible!”

“I was more fortunate, that is all.  Would you blame me if I dreaded the memory of such an incident; if I felt a certain shrinking from one who ever figured in such an incident?  If I could trust—­but then, but then—­Are you very sure that Mr. Parish loved that woman?”

“I am sure of it,” answered the old man soberly.  “Did he use her well?”

“All her life.  He gave her everything—­”

“Oh, that is nothing!  Did he give her—­after he had learned, maybe, that she was not what he had thought—­did he give her then—­love—­belief, trust?  Did he—­are you very sure that any man in such case, after such an incident, could have loved, really loved, the woman whom he held in that way—­”

“I not only believe he might, my dear girl, but I know that in this one case—­the only one of my experience”—­he smiled—­“such was the truth.  There was some untold reason why they two did not, or could not, marry.  I do not go into that.

“Consider, my dear girl,” he resumed; “you are young, and I am so old that it is as though I too were young now and had no experience—­so we may talk.  Our life is a contest among men for money and for love; that is all success can bring us.  In older days men fought for that.  To-day we have modified life a little, and have other ways; but I fancy the game in which that certain lady figured was only one form of contest—­it was a fight, the spoils to go to the victor.”

“Horrible!  But you might have been the victor?  In that case, would you have loved her, would you have used her well, all your life, and hers?”

He drew back now with dignity.  “Madam, my position in later years defends me from necessity of answering you.  You are young, impulsive, but you should not forget the proprieties even now—­” His face was now hotly flushed.

“I ask your pardon!  But would you?”

He smiled in spite of himself, something of the old fire of gallantry still burning in his withered veins.  “My dear girl, if it were yourself, I would!  And by the Lord!  I’d play again with Parish, or any other man, if my chance otherwise, merely by cruel circumstances, had been left hopeless.  Some one must win.”