Blue Voyage: A Novel by Conrad Aiken Read Free Book Online

like Boston’s best … I perceived that if I was to live for another twenty-four hours I would have to seek life down here with you fellows … My God, the meals up there! It’s like a funeral … Your bid, Mr. Demarest … You come from New York?”
    “Yes … One spade.”
    “One spade he says. My partner’s going to say something—I can see it in his eye. It’s all right so long as I don’t see it in his hand … Sometimes the eye is quicker than the hand, on these boats. No reflections, gentlemen.”
    “Double one spade,” said Hay-Lawrence, frowning his monocle into place.
    “Now that’s a new one on me,” said the bald-headed Major, flushing. It was explained by Silberstein, and the game proceeded. The Major polished his pince-nez, endeavoring to look firm.
    “Observe,” murmured Silberstein placidly, “the game in the opposite corner. Particularly observe the gent sitting with his face toward us. You notice that his left eye is glass—a little too far to starboard—the man, I mean, who strikes you as skull-faced. He was on the same ship with me two months ago. A professional card player, addicted to poker. Notice also the rabbit-faced timid little gent who sits two places to his left. Partners, though they pretend not to know each other. They never meet on deck, you’ll find, and they probably don’t eat at the same table.”
    “Poker, what?” said Hay-Lawrence, grimacing as he peered over his shoulder. “I’d like to have a go at him. I’ve got a score to wipe out against poker. I had a little experience in my hotel the night before we sailed.”
    Silberstein lifted a slow finger, diamonded, thickly reprehensive.
    “Never play poker with strangers … Or bridge either. Not for high stakes.”
    “Of course. I’m not a fool, man! In this case, I was bored and I took him on for pure love of adventure. I knew quite well he was some kind of sharper, but wanted to see how he would do it.”
    “Well, how did he do it?”
    “That’s the joke! I don’t know. For the life of me I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. He sauntered up to me while I was reading in the lounge, and asked if I’d like to play. I bought a pack of cards, and we went up to my room. Then we sat down and drew cold hands for a dollar a hand. In an hour and a half I’d lost a hundred dollars. Then I quit. He thanked me politely, put on his hat and departed … I watched him like a hawk—mind—and I couldn’t see a damned thing that looked wrong.”
    “No. You never do. Those men are artists. They wouldn’t do it if they weren’t.”
    “Three men asked me to play bridge with them on the train from Buffalo,” said the Major, blushing. “I refused at first, but then as they said they’d been unable to get a fourth anywhere, I joined them, stipulating that there should be no money in it. After three hands, they said there was no fun in it without a small stake—say fifty cents a hundred. ‘Good-by, gentlemen!’ I said and cleared out.” The Major giggled, blushing; then frowned severly, looking at his cards. Silberstein, with green eyes far apart, glanced at him casually and massively. The Frog Prince.
    “The Major takes no chances,” he said. “Even in the Army, discretion is the better part of valor … How do you know, Major, that Mr. Demarest and I aren’t conspiring together to defraud you?… Consider the circumstances. We three meet, and look for a fourth … I sing out here in this crowded smoking room in my unabashed Jewish way, and out of all those present, and endowed with bridge talent, Mr. Demarest, total stranger, steps forward … Think it over! Looks sort of bad, doesn’t it?”
    “You alarm me,” breathed the Major.
    “And me too,” said Demarest. “What am I up against?”
    “And as for the Duke of Clarence, my partner,” Silberstein placidly pursued, while he arranged his cards and Buddhalike serenely surveyed them with slow slant eyes from end to end of the firmly held fan, “just