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"But, unhappily, our social wisdom does not permit such a reversal," he added, more with a desire to be saying something. "Ah!" she laughed. "There's where my Jesuitism comes in. I can rise above our social wisdom." "You don't mean to say, that ?" "There, shocked as usual! No, I could not be so crude as to speak outright, but I might finesse, as you whist-players say.
Jane's partner was a stout old gentleman whose wife was shrieking with merriment at an auction-bridge table. The other whist-players were a stupid, very small young man who was aimlessly willing to play anything, and an amiable young woman who believed in self-denial. Jane played conscientiously.
You are to be led meekly in as a trophy by which I am to propitiate my stern parent, who has military ideas of promptness and obedience." "What if he should place me under arrest?" "Then Mrs. Mayburn and I will become your jailers, and we shall keep you here until you are one of the most accomplished whist-players in the land."
She attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, standing for elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with this the captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on behalf of the whist-players inside. In the evening, after dinner, she established herself in a sheltered corner and sang.
An hour went by in solemn stillness broken only by the cabalistic phrases of the whist-players: "Spades!" "Trumped!" "Cut!" "How are honors?" "Two to four." "Whose deal?" phrases which represent in these days the higher emotions of the European aristocracy. Modeste continued to work, without seeming to be surprised at her mother's silence.
Now the season was on the sentimental wane; every night the rooms were full of whist-players, and the days were occupied in quiet strolling over the hills, and excursions to Cooperstown and Cherry Valley and "points of view," and visits to the fields to see the hop-pickers at work.
The shooting was not good for much; the billiard-table was under repair; and there were but two really skilled whist-players among the guests. In the atmosphere of dullness thus engendered, the men not only caught the infection of the women's curiosity, but were even ready to listen to the gossip of the servants' hall, repeated to their mistresses by the ladies' maids.
"That, I think, is enough, and more than enough literature and conversation for whist-players," he added, throwing the volume impatiently on a table.
The serious people, politicians, whist-players, and tea-drinkers, are in the parlor. In Madame Deschars' room they are playing a game which consists in hitting upon words with several meanings, to fit the answers that each player is to make to the following questions: How do you like it? What do you do with it? Where do you put it?
Old whist-players sit at table the card-table very late. "Clotilde is setting out for Italy with Madeleine de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu. The poor girl is so madly in love with you, my dear fellow, that they have to keep an eye on her; she was bent on coming to see you, and had plotted an escape. That may comfort you in misfortune!" Lucien made no reply; he sat gazing at Rastignac.
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