Now and then a man's voice bellowed through the clamour like the blare of a bull.
Whenever this happened, the man at the table smiled to himself a faint, thin-lipped smile, and the woman at the window shivered again.
Suddenly, during a lull, he spoke.

He was counting out the cards into heaps with lightning rapidity, turning up one here and there, and he did not raise his eyes from his occupation.
"I say, you know," he said in a drawl that was slightly nasal, "you will have to tell me how old you are.

Is that an obstacle ?" She wheeled round at the first deliberate syllable.

The electric light flared upon her pale, proud face.

She stood in dead silence, looking at him.
"You mustn't mind," he said persuasively, still without lifting his eyes.
"I swear I'll never tell.