Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/101

Rh table. He beat Reba in the first game, and apologized for it, shamefacedly.

"I don't know much how to act with ladies, I guess."

"Why, I think you do."

"You see, you're the first what I call 'white girl' I've spoken to for nearly eight years now."

"Oh, am I?" gasped Reba. "Shan't we play another game?" she suggested hastily.

They played four other games in all—long, silent games, with Reba's eyes steadfastly on the board. If she was the first "white girl" this man had spoken to for eight years, he, as well, was something of a novelty to her. During the deep, prolonged silences of those four games, Reba was not unconscious of the fact that this was the first time in her whole life that she had sat so long, so close, to any man. Their knees, she estimated, were within six inches of touching. She mustn't let such thoughts possess her. She tried to stifle them. He, too—Reba's partner too, out of his reverence for anything so soft and white-handed, so wistful-eyed, so gentle-voiced, so crisply ruffled, pink-sashed, as this feminine creature before him—he, too, tried to keep his thoughts from desecrating so much as the tips of her fingers.

He stayed until the music played "Home, Sweet Home" in the Assembly-hall. They were the only ones left in the parlor when one of the Alliance's hostesses thrust a head in at the door and sang out cheerfully, "Time for everybody to say good-night."

Reba observed, as "Number four" stood up to go, that he was feeling extremely ill at ease again. She thought she knew why, and in an attempt to help him