Miss Gabriel's Gambit by Rita Boucher

to honor his wager.”
    “That is ridiculous, Miles. Who would make so foolish a bet?” Sylvia asked, even though she knew it entirely possible. Her own father had taken outrageous chances, hazarding fortunes on the outcome of a game that he rarely lost. “Besides, even in the unlikely event that the gossip is true, the game was not entirely mine. I was only fourteen years of age when David Rutherford's correspondence with Uncle Miles began ten years ago.”
    “Aren’t you the one always telling me ‘it’s the end-game that counts?’ That was you ! You beat him once,” the boy insisted. “And you could trounce him again in an instant. He’s rich as the Golden Ball and a lord besides. Take him up on his challenge, Syl.”
    “Miles,” she said, taking the boy by the shoulders. “Even if Lord Donhill made so foolish a wager and I were so forward as to win his challenge, it would be unfair to press him to keep a vow made in a moment of drunkenness. He was Uncle’s friend and I consider him mine as well.”
    “But you would be the best kind of wife,” Miles protested. “You’re a bang up to the mark chess player and you don’t even scream at snakes.”
    “High praise, indeed,” Sylvia said with a laugh, “But he would not love me and love is the most important part of a marriage.”
    “Love,” Miles sneered, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “You sound just like Caroline sometimes. ‘Love this, love that, love, love, love!’ Sighing like a mooncalf all the time.”
    “Someday, Miles, you will understand.”
    “I hope not,” Miles declared vehemently. “A wager’s a wager. What if some other female steals a march on you? I’d hazard it in a tick-tock!”
    “I rather doubt it,” Sylvia chuckled. “There are not many chess players of either sex who could match David Rutherford,” she said. “Besides, what would your Mama say if I should play him and lose? You know how she hates chess and thinks it no fit game for ladies. If she did not think me the rankest of amateurs I doubt that she would even tolerate a board in the house. Challenging a man for a wager, I venture, would put me entirely beyond the pale.”
    “But you could win it, Syl,” the boy declared once more, but he desisted at last when he saw his cousin’s obdurate expression. There was a sound from below and Miles ran to the open window, glad of the distraction.
    “Look, Syl,” he called, beckoning her to the sill. “Look at those matched greys; ain’t they fine?”
    Sylvia watched as David Rutherford leapt lightly into his vehicle. The sun glinted on his silver handled whip as he chanced to look up, saluting the waving boy with a flourish. Sylvia backed away, flushing in shame that Lord Donhill might have seen her gawping like some country greenling.
    “Ain’t nothing behindhand about those horses,” Miles said, waving enthusiastically until the carriage was out of sight. “If it were me, I’d challenge him in a minute.”
    Sylvia sighed. “No, Miles; and I hope that you will not betray me. If your Mama should find out what I have been about, then I have no doubt that she would cast me out on the street.”
     “Not me! You know I’d never cry rope!” Miles said, stoutly, offended at the very suggestion. “Still-”
    “Sylvia!” There was no mistaking that shrill voice and with a sympathetic look, Miles scampered to a seat, taking up a book just as the door swung open to admit his mother, puffing with the exertion. It said much for the level of her annoyance that she had essayed the climb up the nursery stair.
    Sylvia closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself for the tirade that was sure to come and for some reason, David Rutherford’s face came to mind. As she listened with feigned meekness, to her aunt’s harangue, Miles’ words echoed in her head. “I’d hazard him in a minute.”
    Sylvia had always thought those Minerva Press heroines, who meekly submitted to fate with stoic resolution, were fools. It was