Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/92

78 a marvel to her new acquaintances. A touch—not a thrust—to the white ball sent it against a red at an angle that carried it over to another quite at the other end of the table, which latter rolled into a pocket. This, to the uninitiated, meaningless process, being repeated by her with trifling variations until she had made sixteen points, was considered a feat among the embryo billiardists surrounding her.

"So much for a true eye and a sure touch!" said Fanny Provost. "You shame us all, Jessie dear!"

"So much for having a good teacher!" said another, less complimentary. "If Mr. Wyllys would bestow as much care upon our tuition as he has upon hers, we might be adepts, too."

"She has practised twice as much with me as she has with him," answered Fanny, pleasantly. "So, I am entitled to the larger share of the praise for her proficiency. I won't be cheated of my laurels."

"Is Mr, Wyllys, then, your best player?"

The querist was Hester Sanford, a young heiress, who had lately come to visit the Provost's, and was not yet altogether au fait to the people and usages of the place. She knew Orrin, however, as one of the lions of the town, and a privileged visitor at her friend's house.

"Decidedly!" returned a looker-on, Selina Bradley by name. "Don't you think so, Fan?"

"There are not many who can equal him among our best billiard-players," said Fanny. "I think he has not lost a game since Mr. Fordham went away. He played splendidly. His nerves were steady and his judgment nice."

"Fordham!" repeated the heiress, quickly. "Do you mean Roy Fordham, formerly a professor in your college?"

"The same. But he still holds his professorship, with a year's leave of absence. He is studying abroad—at Heidelberg, in Germany. Do you know him?"

"I used to," rejoined Miss Sanford, tossing her head." He [sic] was once engaged to be married to a very dear friend of mine."

"Engaged! I thought he was love proof! Fanny! Nettie! Sue! do you hear this?" cried Selina, who dearly relished a morsel of spicy gossip. "Who do you guess is engaged to be married? No less a personage than our invulnerable Professor Fordham!"

The girls crowded about Miss Sanford, forgetting the game in the superior excitement of a love story.

"To whom?"

"Who told you?"

"I don't believe it!" were the divers comments upon the intelligence.

Jessie remained alone at the table, tapping the cushion opposite her with her cue, her face flaming with indignant confusion. The rest were too much interested in the topic under discussion to notice. Miss Sanford was a sandy-haired young lady of four-and-twenty, with a fair, freckled face, snub nose, faint eyebrows and thin lips. She gave herself marvellous airs on the score of her wealth, and was immensely vain of the adulation it purchased for her wherever she went. She bridled at the last remark, setting back her head in a fashion she conceived was regal, whereas it was merely ungracefully scornful.

"You are not asked to believe it. Miss Barnes! I said distinctly that the gentleman was formerly betrothed to my friend. I am happy, on her account,