"But, Dick,--how shall you live?"
"Oh, I have an old place at Devenham, in the wilds of Kent,--we
shall rusticate there."
"And you will give up Almack's, White's--all the glory of the
Fashionable World?"
"Oh, man!" cried the Viscount, radiant of face, "how can all these
possibly compare? I shall have Clemency!"
"But surely you will find it very quiet, after London and the clubs?"
"Yes, it will be very quiet at Devenham, Bev," said the Viscount,
very gently, "and there are roses there, and she loves roses, I know!
We shall be alone in the world together,--alone! Yes, it will be
very quiet, Bev--thank heaven!"
"The loneliness will pall, after a time, Dick--say a month. And the
roses will fade and wither--as all things must, it seems," said
Barnabas bitterly, whereupon the Viscount turned and looked at him
and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Why, Bev," said he, "my dear old Bev,--what is it? You're greatly
changed, I think; it isn't like you to be a cynic. You are my friend,
but if you were my bitterest enemy I should forgive you, full and
freely, because of your behavior to Clemency. My dear fellow, are you
in any trouble--any danger? I have been away only a week, yet I come
back to find the town humming with stories of your desperate play. I
hear that D'Argenson plucked you for close on a thousand the other
day--"
"But I won fifteen hundred the same night, Dick."
"And lost all that, and more, to the Poodle later!"
"Why--one can't always win, Dick."
"Oh, Bev, my dear fellow, do you remember shaking your grave head at
me because I once dropped five hundred in one of the hells?"
"I fear I must have been very--young then, Dick!"
"And to-day, Bev, to-day you are a notorious gambler, and you sneer
at love! Gad! what a change is here! My dear fellow, what does it
all mean?"
Barnabas hesitated, and this history might have been very different
in the ending but, even as he met the Viscount's frank and anxious
look, the door was flung wide and Tressider, the thinnish, youngish
gentleman in sandy whiskers, rushed in, followed by the Marquis and
three or four other fine gentlemen, and, beholding the Viscount,
burst into a torrent of speech: "Ha! Devenham! there you are,--back from the wilds, eh? Heard the
latest? No, I'll be shot if you have--none of you have, and I'm
bursting to tell it--positively exploding, damme if I'm not. It was
last night, at Crockford's you'll understand, and every one was
there--Skiffy, Apollo, the Poodle, Red Herrings, No-grow, the
Galloping Countryman and your obedient humble. One o'clock was
striking as the game broke up, and there's Beverley yawning and
waiting for his hat, d' ye see, when in comes the Golden Ball. 'Ha,
Beverley!' says he, 'you gamble, they tell me?' 'Oh, now and then,'
says Beverley. 'Why then,' says Golden Ball, 'you may have heard that
I do a little that way, myself?' Now you mention it, I believe I
have,' says Beverley. 'Ha!' says Golden Ball, winking at the rest of
us, 'suppose we have a match, you and I--call your game.' 'Sir,'
says Beverley, yawning again, 'it is past one o'clock, and I make it
a rule never to play after one o'clock except for rather high stakes,'
(Rather high stakes says he! and to the Golden Ball,--oh curse me!)
'Do you, begad!' says Golden Ball, purple in the face--'ha!
you may have heard that I occasionally venture a hundred or so
myself--whatever the hour! Waiter--cards!' 'Sir,' says Beverley,
I've been playing ever since three o'clock this afternoon and I'm
weary of cards.' 'Oh, just as you wish,' says Golden Ball, 'at
battledore and shuttlecock I'm your man, or rolling the bones, or--'
'Dice, by all means!' says Beverley, yawning again. 'At how much a
throw?' says Golden Ball, sitting down and rattling the box. 'Well,'
says Beverley, 'a thousand, I think, should do to begin with!'
('A thou-sand,' says he, damme if he didn't!) Oh Gad, but you
should have seen the Golden Ball, what with surprise and his cravat,
I thought he'd choke--shoot me if I didn't! 'Done!' says he at last
(for we were all round the table thick as flies you'll understand)
--and to it they went, and in less than a quarter of an hour,
Beverley had bubbled him of close on seven thousand! Quickest thing
I ever saw, oh, curse me!"