“I wish you wouldn’t call him Herby,” snapped his sister.

“Not respectful?” inquired Malcourt, lifting his eyebrows.  “Well, I’ll call him anything you like, Helen; I don’t care.  But make it something I can say when ladies are present—­”

Tressilvain’s mink-like muzzle turned white with rage.  He didn’t like to be flouted, he didn’t like his cards, he didn’t like to lose money.  And he had already lost a lot between luncheon and the impending dinner.

“Why the devil I continue to hold all these three-card suits I don’t know,” he said savagely.  “Isn’t there another pack in the house?”

“There was” said Malcourt; and ironically condoled with him as Portlaw accomplished a little slam in hearts.

Then Tressilvain dealt; and Malcourt’s eyes never left his brother-in-law’s hands as they distributed the cards with nervous rapidity.

“Misdeal,” he said quietly.

“What?” demanded his sister in sharp protest.

“It’s a misdeal,” repeated Malcourt, smiling at her; and, as Tressilvain, half the pack suspended, gazed blankly at him, Malcourt turned and looked him squarely in the eye.  The other reddened.

“Too bad,” said Malcourt, with careless good-humour, “but one has to be so careful in dealing the top card, Herby.  You stumble over your own fingers; they’re too long; or perhaps it’s that ring of yours.”

A curious, almost ghastly glance passed involuntarily between the Tressilvains; Portlaw, who was busy lighting a cigar, did not notice it, but Malcourt laughed lightly and ran over the score, adding it up with a nimble accuracy that seemed to stun his relatives.

“Why, look what’s here!” he exclaimed, genially displaying a total that, added, balanced all Portlaw’s gains and losses to date.  “Why, isn’t that curious, Helen!  Right off the bat like that!—­cricket-bat,” he explained affably to Tressilvain, who, as dinner was imminent, had begun fumbling for his check-book.

At Malcourt’s suave suggestion, however, instead of drawing a new check he returned Portlaw’s check.  Malcourt took it, tore it carefully in two equal parts.

“Half for you, William, half for me,” he said gaily.  “My—­my!  What strange things do happen in cards—­and in the British Isles!”

The dull flush deepened on Tressilvain’s averted face, but Lady Tressilvain, unusually pale, watched her brother persistently during the general conversation that preceded dressing for dinner.

CHAPTER XXVI

SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

After the guests had gone away to dress Portlaw looked inquiringly at Malcourt and said:  “That misdeal may have been a slip.  I begin to believe I was mistaken after all.  What do you think, Louis?”

Malcourt’s eyes wandered toward his wife who still bent low over her sewing.  “I don’t think,” he said absently, and sauntered over to Shiela, saying: