Chapter V: "black Wins."

The fascination of the gaming-table was too much for him; all his sense of dignity vanished before it; even his very jealous rage seemed thus powerless against it. Humiliated as he felt at the idea of accepting charity from his rival, he could not reject it when it came to feed his passion for play. Although he had not a farthing in the house, although utter destitution threatened him, he would not, to save himself from it, have accepted Heath's assistance; but he could accept it when it enabled him to play.

To one of his old haunts he went. The first man he saw there was the large-whiskered, jovial, and eccentric gentleman whom he had noticed on the second evening: of his entering a house of play: he had since lost sight of him. The little man stroked his bushy whiskers fondly over his face, and, offering Cecil a pinch of snuff, expressed his pleasure at meeting him again.

"Come to try the goddess, sir?" he inquired. "Fickle goddess! now smiling, now frowning--quite a _woman_! I am no great hand _myself_; but, as far as a few crowns go, I find it a _pleasant game_--decidedly pleasant. Would you like to _regulate_ yourself by my _card_?--duly _pricked_, you see. There have been three runs upon the black; once it turned up eleven times. Shall we take a glass of _wine_ together? Yes;--waiter! some _wine_."

"No wine for me, thank you; I never touch it before dinner. Have you seen Mr. Forrester here to-day?"

"The gentleman with the large moustachios?--Yes; he has been playing, and won; but he went away about a quarter of an hour _ago_."

Cecil took his seat at the table. Gambling by day has, somehow, a more hideous aspect than by night: I suppose because it looks so little like an amusement, and so much like a mere affair of cupidity. But Cecil had grown used to this, as to other loathsome aspects of his vice, and sat down to the table with as much _sang froid_ as if he were about to transact the most ordinary piece of business.

He had not been playing long, winning and losing in pretty equal succession, when Frank came back.

"What, again!" said Cecil. "I thought you had gone for the day: I heard you had departed with your winnings."

"The fact is, that I found my winnings rapidly decreasing, so I thought a little interval might very properly elapse; after which fortune again might be on my side. Besides, old boy, you must know that I haven't dined for eight days;--and when I say dined, I don't mean dining in the true sense, but in the common, vulgar, _pauper_ sense of the word. I have made no meal which could _represent_ a dinner. For eight days I haven't touched meat, damn my whiskers! So, being as ravenous as a hyena, I determined that to-day, at least, I _would_ dine."

"And have you?"

"Have I, Cis? Why it's not yet five: do you imagine that under _any_ circumstance I could lower myself so far as to dine at the shopkeeper's hour? No, damn it! one may be hard up, but one does not forget one is a gentleman!"

"Have you ordered your dinner then?"

"More than ordered it--_paid_ for it. I went to the butcher's, and bought two pounds of magnificent steak: this I carried to a small Public, hard by, with the strictest injunctions as to the dressing of it--saw the cook myself, and am satisfied she knows what's what. It is to be ready at half-past six precisely, with no end of fried potatoes, and a bottle of their old crusted, which I know from experience is a wine that a gentleman can drink. The dinner you will say is not epicurean, but at any rate it is _certain_, because I have paid for it all. Now I don't mind risking the rest of my winnings. My mind is at rest: the baser appetites are provided for."

He began to play also; and he won.

"I told you luck would change," he said.

But he soon lost again, and lost repeatedly.

"Never mind, I have secured a dinner for to-day, which will last a week."

Cecil was equally unfortunate; the run seemed to be decidedly against him.

At last Frank threw down his final half-crown. It went like the others. He started up, and hurried away, without saying good-bye; indeed, giving no other expression of his feelings than was convoyed in an energetic denunciation of his whiskers.

Cecil played on; and as he saw the sovereigns disappear in spite of his famous martingale, his heart sank within him, and the gloom of despair seemed to paralyse his mind. Suffering horrible agony from the intense excitement of each coup, he yet played mechanically, almost listlessly, he lost, and won, and lost again, with fearful alternation of sick despair and dull joy. It was as if he were staking his heart's blood on each turn.

Frank returned, not without a certain hilarity in his manner.

"Where have you been?" Cecil faintly inquired.

"To my worthy host of the Coach and Horses, at whose house my dinner is commanded. It struck me that I could very well dispense with wine to-day--the more so as it costs six shillings a bottle, and here one gets it for nothing--so I negociated with the worthy publican, and sold him the wine back again for two half-crowns. Here they are. What d'ye think of that? Is that management of financial difficulties, eh?"

A sickly smile was the only answer Cecil gave, for at that moment he had just lost his fourth _coup_ running. The two half-crowns seemed to bring back Frank's luck, for he won rapidly; Cecil, who played the same colours, also won. Winning and losing, and losing and winning, so the game went on, with alternate rising and falling of hopes, and in the rapidity with which small gains mounted up to large sums, and those sums dwindled down again, crowding as much excitement as would have filled a month of ordinary life.

"Done! cleaned out!" exclaimed Frank, as he saw himself once more penniless.

A sharp pang shot across Cecil's face, as he threw down his last sovereign on the red.

"_Après_," said the dealer.

Cecil had now only ten shillings remaining of the fifty pounds. In breath-suspended agony he watched the cards.

"Red wins!" said the dealer.

He breathed again, and looked round to smile at Frank; but that worthy had again departed to negociate the sale of his dinner.

Yes; this dinner, so cherished, so anticipated, paid for in advance, on which the imagination had luxuriated as on a kingly banquet; this dinner was sold for a miserable trifle, that he might risk one more coup at that table where so many men had ruined themselves before!

Cecil continued in luck until Frank returned; this time with no hilarity on his face, but a quiet gravity, which seemed prepared for the worst; and when he lost the last shilling he broke out into a short, sharp, hysterical laugh, and turning to Cecil, said with forced calmness,--

"I shall not dine to-day."

"Pleasant _game_ this, sir," said the bushy-whiskered gentleman, coming up to where Frank sat, "take a pinch of _snuff_, sir?" Frank accepted with grace, and began chatting with the smiling gentleman, who was very communicative, and informed Frank that he had that afternoon won no less than ten half-crowns by backing the red.

"Quite right, sir," said Frank, "red _is_ the colour."

"No doubt about it."

"Yes, yes. By the way, you haven't a half-crown about you at this minute, have you? I am cleared out for the day."

"Why, I certainly have _such_ a thing, but..."

"Say no more, my dear fellow," said Frank, shaking him warmly by the hand, "half a crown will be abundance, I only want to try the red once. I'm really obliged to you for the offer of the loan, and shall accept it with pleasure. Now-a-days one does not often meet with such a trump! If ever you should run low, you know, in me you will always find one ready to reciprocate a civility."

The smiling gentleman rubbed his whiskers and filled his nose with snuff; but he concluded by slipping the half-crown into Frank's hand, who instantly threw it on the red.

Cecil had thrown his last five pounds upon the red, and with straining eyeballs watched the falling cards.

"Black wins," said the dealer.

Frank saw the croupier rake away his half-crown, and with it Cecil's five pounds.

A low cry burst from Cecil, as he learned his fate; and, leaning his elbows on the table, he let his head fall into his hands, and sobbed aloud.

The dealers and croupiers, accustomed to every expression of grief, sat with immoveable, expressionless faces, pursuing their routine with an indifference which was quite ghastly. The players looked upon him with different feelings: some with compassion, some with contempt, some with sympathetic fear. But above his wretched sobs were heard the unvarying tones of, "Gentlemen, make your game; the game is made."

Frank touched Cecil on the shoulder, and beckoned him to come away. Mechanically Cecil did so, and they stepped together out into the dull, dismal, November evening, and walked through the mist and lightly falling snow, without uttering a word.

At Park Lane they parted; a pressure of the hand was the only expression of their feelings which passed between them. Sick at heart, they both felt that nothing could be said to comfort them.

The lights glimmered dimly through the dirty air of that November evening, and the snow fell, and the rain, and the whole scene was drear and desolate, as Cecil wandered on, crushed in spirit, savage from remorse, exasperated by his impotent efforts to shake off the galling remembrance that he was now Heath's debtor--that he had taken his money, and could not throw it back at him.

Wild thoughts of suicide chased across his soul, like dancing lights over a bleak moor at night; but they did not long abide with him.