“Happiness!—­what is that?” she said slowly.  “I’ve been trying to find it all my life.  My God!  How crooked were all the mismated planets at my birth!  I haven’t been happy myself.  I do not think that I’ve added one iota to the happiness of any one else, I’ve just failed, that’s all.  And I’ve tried so hard—­to do something, something for the world!  Oh, can a woman—­can she, ever?” For once shaken, she dropped her face an instant in her hands, he standing by, mute, and suffering much as herself at seeing her thus suffer.

“But now,” she continued after a time, “—­I want to ask you whether I’ve been ungenerous or vindictive with you—­”

“Vindictive?  You?  Never!  But why should you be?”

“Captain,” she said easily, “my lieutenant, my friend, let me say—­I will not be specific—­I will not mention names or dates; but do you think, if you were a woman, you could ever marry a man who once, behind your back, with not even eagerness to incite him, but coolly, deliberately—­had played a game of cards for—­you?”

He stiffened as though shot.  “I know.  But you misunderstand.  I did not play for you.  I played to relieve a situation—­because I thought you wished—­because it seemed the solution of a situation hard for both of us.  I thought—­”

“Solution!” She blazed up now, tigerlike, and her words came through set lips.  “I’d never have told you I knew, if you hadn’t said what you have.  But—­a solution—­a plan—­a compromise!  You ought to have played for me!  You ought to have played for me; and you ought to have won—­have won!”

[Illustration:  You ought to have played for me!]

He stood before a woman new to him, one so different from the grateful and gracious enthusiast he had met all these months that he could not comprehend the change, could not at once adjust his confused senses.  So miserable was he that suddenly, with one of her swift changes, she smiled at him, even through her sudden tears.  “No!  No!” she exclaimed.  “See!  Look here!”

She handed him a little sheet of crumpled note paper, inscribed in a cramped hand, showed him the inscription—­“Jeanne Fournier.”

“You don’t know who that is?” she asked him.

“No, I don’t know.”

“Why, yes, you do.  My maid—­my French maid—­don’t you remember?  She married Hector, the cooper, at St. Genevieve.  Now, see, Jeanne is writing to me again.  Don’t you see, there’s a baby, and it is named for me—­who has none.  Good-by, that money!”—­she kissed hand to the air—­“Good-by, that idea, that dream of mine!  That’s of no consequence.  In fact, nothing is of consequence.  See, this is the baby of Jeanne!  She has asked me to come.  Why, then, should I delay?”

Whether it were tears or smiles which he saw upon her face Carlisle never could determine.  Whether it were physical unrest or mental emotion, he did not know, but certainly it was that the letter of the agent remained upon the table untouched between them while Josephine St. Auban pressed to her lips the letter from Jeanne, her maid.