King of Spades Read Free

were dissimilar, the left eye green and the right eye brown.
    While Aunt Agnes prattled on her end of the table about such things as that horseback exercise was not proper for a girl, that a hot mustard bath was good for the hidden sin, that a pregnancy could help to terminate an insanity, that a marriage was one of the best tonics for the female psyche, Magnus and Kitty were exchanging warm looks at their end of the table.
    Kitty had been a recent problem to her aunt. A nine-year-old boy named Dennis had been their previous boarder. Kitty had on occasion been left alone with Dennis. Dennis was shy. To get him to play with her, Kitty had enticed him with candy. Dennis loved jelly beans and finally became quite friendly. Soon Kitty took to hiding the jelly beans so he would have to reach across her body to get at them. Or look under her. Then she took to hiding the jelly beans on her person: inside her folded knee, in her clapped-shut armpit. She got him to explore her everywhere, until he explored that part of her where, tickling, it made her dizzy. Aunt Agnes caught them at it. Dennis was promptly shipped off to distant kin.
    Aunt Agnes trusted Magnus on first sight. His quietly superior airs, the way he swung his walking stick, inspired respect.
    Soon Aunt Agnes was busy spinning webs and fantasies around Magnus, mostly in behalf of Kitty, but also in part for herself. The thought went through Aunt Agnes’ mind that in a few years, just as the young Dr. Magnus King should have established a fine practice in Chicago, Kitty would need a husband. Marrying Kitty off to Magnus would mend both sides of the fence at the same time—a girl who threatened to go wild would be safely harnessed in marriage, while she herself, Agnes Rodman, would for the rest of her natural life have free doctoring.
    Aunt Agnes made up her mind that it wasn’t going to be her fault if Kitty didn’t make the perfect doctor’s wife. Aunt Agnes got out several old doctor books and began to bend Kitty’s ear knowingly about such matters as depraved appetites and prenatal impressions, about how tight lacing could be ruinous to the female innards, and the like.
    Aunt Agnes also presumed to instruct Kitty on the nature of love. “At first one is attracted to the opposite sex because of animal passion, my dear. Plainly just that. Yet you must always bear in mind that out of this animal passion can rise a mighty and pure love, which is to the other what the delicate flower is to the unsightly tuber.”
    Aunt Agnes even told Kitty what her husband could expect of her in the way of submission, and how much of this she was to allow her husband. “Two or three indulgences a week may be looked upon as within the proper bounds of propriety.”
    The truth was Kitty was already miles ahead of Aunt Agnes.
    The second week of Magnus’ stay, on a Sunday, Kitty managed to sniffle convincingly enough so that Aunt Agnes permitted her to stay home from church. Magnus himself never went to church. Around eleven o’clock in the morning, with Aunt Agnes gone, Kitty knocked on Magnus’ door to ask him if he didn’t have some kind of cough syrup around for her cold. All Kitty had on was a wrapper.
    Magnus did have something for her cold. He mixed together some brandy, honey, and the extract of horehound. He gave her several spoonfuls.
    Magnus was terribly taken by Kitty. As he watched her lick her quaintly cut sensuous lips upon taking the cough medicine, he longed to kiss her. It came upon him suddenly that he had missed out on the whole business of a boy being in love with a girl, especially during puberty. What was more lovely to look upon, and to touch, than a just-buddedgirl of thirteen? Magnus began to regret his exploits with cheap women.
    Kitty noted a small tintype on his desk. She leaned forward to have a look at it, and as she did so, she let slide a sidewise silverish look at him. Her green eye in particular smoked