hesitatingly.

"Couldn't afford it in my business,--and can't now," said Jack
cheerfully. "But," he added curiously, as if recognizing something in
his companion's agitation, and lifting his brown lashes to her, the
window, and the ceiling, "what's all this about? What's your little game
here?"

"I'm married," she said, with nervous intensity,--"married, and this is
my husband's house!"

"Not married straight out!--regularly fixed?"

"Yes," she said hurriedly.

"One of the boys? Don't remember any Rylands. SPELTER used to be very
sweet on you,--but Spelter mightn't have been his real name?"

"None of our lot! No one you ever knew; a--a straight out, square man,"
she said quickly.

"I say, Nell, look here! You ought to have shown up your cards without
even a call. You ought to have told him that you danced at the Casino."

"I did."

"Before he asked you to marry him?"

"Before."