578 ANGEL PAVEMENT

of his except his wife, who would shake her mysterious
dark curls at him and girlishly protest against his
sinister subtlety. "Isn't he dreadful?" she would cry,
after Mr. Pearson, with much stroking of his chin and
narrowing of his eyes, had succeeded in some common-
place finesse. Mrs. Pearson, though she had been sitting
at bridge tables for years, was one of those cheerfully
bad players who continually ask for and receive advice,
but have not the slightest intention of improving their
play, Probably she only saw the cards as so many vague
pieces of pasteboard, and what was real to her was simply
the social scene, the faces round the green cloth and the
pleasant chatter between games. If somebody had sug-
gested playing Snap with the cards or telling fortunes
with them, she would have been delighted, but as people
seemed to prefer bridge, whether in Singapore or in
London, she gladly made one at the table. And if all
Barkfield Gardens had been combed, it would have been
impossible to find a worse partner for Miss Verever,who
played a good, keen, close, give-no-quarter game, and
loathed all idle chatterers at the table, all idiots who
would not get trumps out, all the fools who clung to
their wretched aces, all the witless monsters who said,
"Have you seen her lately? I haven't seen her for weeks
and weeks. Let me see, what are trumps?" Mrs. Pear-
son combined smilingly every fault in bridge-playing
known to Miss Verever, and Miss Verever's glances and
tone of voice, queer and disturbing at any time, were
now more queer and disturbing than ever, so that Mrs.
Dersingham felt quite frightened and wished she had
never asked her to take Howard's place. On Mrs. Pear-
son herself, however, these very peculiar glances, these
biting accents seemed to have no effect.