softly on the lute--maybe you suggest chess--maybe you tell something
very droll that happened in the garden or the kennel--he doesn't
suspect why you're telling him, at first he scarcely seems to hear you
and then--when he does stop thinking about the unpleasantness--he
smiles!--Watch Grandfather when he says 'Check!' and you will see what
I mean--"

One comfort was, Felice didn't have to play chess all of the days.
Never on the days when Certain Legal Matters came. Then Grandfather
disappeared into the gloomy depths of the library and from the garden
Felice could hear the disagreeable grumble of the burly lawyer as he
consulted with his extraordinary old client.

"Absolutely no! Absolutely no!" her grandfather's voice would ring
out, "I tell you I will not! A man who takes a pension for doing his
duty to his country is despicable! And as for the other matter--I do
not have to touch anything that was my wife's! I do not approve of the
manner whereby she obtained that income--if Octavia wishes it, that is
a different matter--it can be kept for the child if Octavia chooses to
look at the matter that way--but for myself I will not touch it! I do
not require it--I will not touch it--it was a bad business--There is
nothing quixotic about my refusal, nothing whatever, sir! We differ
absolutely on that point, as we do on most others!"

Felicia heard that speech so often that she could almost have recited
it, she heard it nearly every time that Certain Legal Matters
appeared, he always put the Major in a temper. Grandy couldn't get
himself sufficiently calm for chess on such days.

Nor did she play chess on the days when the Wheezy came to sew.