A pack of cards lay upon her table and, as she picked them up, idly, she thought how he condemned cards whether you played with them for money or not or whether you simply dealt them to tell your fortune.
She shuffled and began dealing her fortune, as she often did and she forgot father Herrick as she dealt a card to the right and a card to the left. The fall of cards upon the right-hand pile was to tell her fortune in respect to the fortune of the pile to the left, which was Alice Sothron's; for it was Alice who was in her mind.
Alice was at home this summer in the big house a mile up the shore. In every previous summer Alice had gone away, either to Europe or to the Atlantic coast or to the Colorado mountains. This was a summer when Alice might have remained at home for a number of reasons entirely unconnected with David and Fidelia Herrick but Fidelia never thought of Alice doing anything without having David in mind. Alice was still unmarried and though Fidelia knew that she often went out with men, yet Fidelia knew also that Alice never was seen frequently with the same man. Now and then, in the three years, Fidelia had happened to meet Alice and Fidelia knew that Alice had never given up David.
Her idea of Alice disturbed Fidelia this August more than before; for Fidelia was feeling that David was not as happy as he had been. She was sure he still loved her; she did not think of him wishing for Alice, or for any one else, in place of her. She loved David; but in spite of their love for each other, he was less happy.
