Prince Fortunatus, William Black [pdf e book reader .txt] 📗

young gentlemen standing with their backs to the fire in the supper-room of the Garden Club. They were rather good-looking young men, very carefully shaven and shorn, gray-eyed, fair-moustached; and, indeed, they were so extremely like each other that it might have been hard to distinguish between them but that one chewed a toothpick and the other a cigarette. Both were in evening dress, and both still wore the overcoat and crush-hat in which they had come into the club. They could talk freely, without risk of being overheard; for the members along there at the supper-table were all listening, with much laughter, to a professional entertainer, who, unlike the proverbial clown released from the pantomime, was never so merry and amusing as when diverting a select little circle of friends with his own marvellous adventures.

"It's about time for Lionel Moore to make his appearance," said one of the two companions, glancing at the clock.

"I would rather have anybody else, if it comes to that," said the other, peevishly. "Moore spoils the game all to bits. You never know where to have him--"

"Yes, that's just where he finds his salvation," continued he of the toothpick. "Mind you, that wild play has its advantages. He gets caught now and again, but he catches you at times. You make sure he is bluffing, you raise him and raise him, then you call him--and find he has three aces! And I will say this for Moore--he's a capital loser. He doesn't seem to mind losing a bit, so long as you keep on. You would think he was a millionaire; only a millionaire would have an eye on every chip, I suppose. What salary do they give him at the New Theatre?"

"Fifty pounds a week, I've heard say; but people tell such lies. Even fifty pounds a week won't hold out if he goes on like that. What I maintain is that it isn't good poker. For one thing, I object to 'straddling' altogether; it's simply a stupid way of raising the stakes; of course, the straddler has the advantage of coming in last, but then look at the disadvantage of having to bet first. No, I don't object to betting before the draw; that's sensible; there's some skill and judgment in that; but straddling is simply stupid. You ought to make it easy for every one to come in; that's the proper game; frighten them out afterwards if you can." And then he added, gloomily, "That fellow Moore is a regular bull in a china-shop."

"I suspect he has been raking over a few of your chips, Bertie," his companion said, with a placid grin.

Just as he was speaking, Lionel entered the room, and, having ordered some supper, took a seat at the table. One of those young gentlemen, throwing away his toothpick, came and sat down opposite him.

"Big house to-night, as usual?" he asked.

"Full," was the answer. "I dare say when the archangel blows his trump, "The Squire's Daughter" will still be advertised in the bills all over the town. I don't see why it should stop before then."

"It would be a sudden change for the company, wouldn't it?" the young man on the other side of the table said. "Fancy, now, a music-hall singer--no disrespect to you, Moore--I mean a music-hall comic--fancy his finding himself all at once in heaven; don't you think he'd feel deuced awkward? He wouldn't be quite at home, would he?--want to get back to Mr. Chairman and the chorus in the gallery, eh, what?--'pon my soul, it would make a capital picture if you could get a fellow with plenty of imagination to do it--quite tragic, don't you know--you'd have the poor devil's face just full of misery--not knowing where to go or what to do--"

"The British public would be inclined to rise and rend that painter," said Lionel, carelessly; this young man was useful as a poker-player, but otherwise not interesting.

Two or three members now came in; and by the time Lionel had finished his frugal supper there was a chosen band of five ready to go up-stairs and set to work with the cards. There was some ordering of lemon-squashes and further cigarettes; new packs were brought by the waiter; the players took their places; and the game was opened. With a sixpenny "ante" and a ten-shilling "limit," the amusement could have been kept mild enough by any one who preferred it should remain so.

But the usual thing happened. Now and again a fierce fight would ensue between two good hands, and that seemed to arouse a spirit of general emulation and eagerness; the play grew more bold; bets apart from the game were laid by individual players between themselves. The putting up of the "ante" became a mere farce, for every one came in as a matter of course, even if he had to draw five cards; and already the piles of chips on the table had undergone serious diminution or augmentation--in the latter case there was a glimmer of gold among the bits of ivory. There was no visible excitement, however; perhaps a player caught bluffing might smile a little--that was all.

Lionel had been pretty fortunate, considering his wild style of play; but then his very recklessness stood him in good stead when he chanced to have a fair hand--his reputation for bluffing leading on his opponents. And then an extraordinary bit of luck had befallen him. On this occasion the first hand dealt him contained three queens, a seven, and a five. To make the other players imagine he had either two pairs or was drawing to a flush, he threw away only one of the two useless cards--the five, as it chanced; but his satisfaction (which he bravely endeavored to conceal) may be imagined when he found that the single card dealt him in its place was a seven--he therefore had a full hand! When it came to his turn, instead of beginning cautiously, as an ordinary player would have done, he boldly raised the bet ten shillings. But that frightened nobody. His game was known; they imagined he had either two pairs or had failed to fill his flush and was merely bluffing. When, however, there was another raise of ten shillings from the opposite side of the table, that was a very different matter; one by one the others dropped out, leaving these two in. And then it went on:

"Well, I'll just see your ten shillings and raise you another ten."

"And another ten."

"And another ten."

"And another ten."

Of course, universal attention was now concentrated on this duel. Probably four out of five of the players were of opinion that Lionel Moore was bluffing; that, at least, was certainly the opinion of his antagonist, who kept raising and raising without a qualm. At length both of them had to borrow money to go on with; but still the duel continued, and still the pile of gold and chips in the middle of the table grew and increased.

"And another ten."

"And another ten."

Not a word of encouragement or dissuasion was uttered by any one of the onlookers; they sat silent and amused, wondering which of the two was about to be smitten under the fifth rib. And at last it was Lionel's opponent who gave in.

"On this occasion," said he, depositing his half-sovereign, "I will simply gaze; what have you got?"

"Well, I have got a full hand," Lionel answered, putting down his hand on the table.

"That is good enough," the other said, stolidly. "Take away the money."

After this dire combat, the game fell flat a little; but interest was soon revived by a round of Jack-pots; and here again Lionel was in good luck. Indeed, when the players rose from the table about three o'clock, he might have come away a winner of close on L40 had not some reckless person called out something about whiskey poker. Now whiskey poker is the very stupidest form of gambling that the mind of man has ever conceived, though at the end of the evening some folk hunger after it as a kind of final fillip. Each person puts down a certain sum--it may be a sovereign, it may be five sovereigns; poker hands are dealt out, the cards being displayed face upwards on the table; there is no drawing; whoever has the best hand simply annexes the pool. It looks like a game, but it is not a game; it is merely cutting the cards; but, as the stakes can be doubled or trebled each round, the jaded appetite for gambling finds here a potent and fiery stimulant just as the party breaks up. Lionel was not anxious to get away with the money he had won. It was he who proposed to increase the stakes to L10 from each player--which the rest of them, to their credit be it said, refused to do. In the end, when they went to get their hats and coats before issuing into the morning air, some one happened to ask Lionel how he had come off on the whole night; and he replied that he did not think he had either won or lost anything to speak of. He hardly knew. Certainly he did not seem to care.

The dawn was not yet. The gas-lamps shone in the murky thoroughfares as he set out for Piccadilly--alone. The others all went away in hansoms; he preferred to walk. And even when he reached his rooms, he did not go to bed at once; he sat up thinking, a prey to a strange sort of restlessness that had of late taken possession of him. For this young man's gay and happy butterfly-life was entirely gone. The tragic disappearance of Nina, followed by the sudden shattering of all his visionary hopes in connection with Honnor Cunyngham, had left him in a troubled, anxious, morbid state that he himself, perhaps, could not well have accounted for. Then the sense of solitariness that he had experienced when he found that Nina had so unexpectedly vanished from his ken had been intensified since he had taken to declining invitations from his fashionable friends, and spending his nights in the aimless distraction of gambling at the Garden Club. Was there a touch of hurt pride in his withdrawal from the society of those who in former days used to be called "the great"? At least he discovered this, that if he did wish to withdraw from their society, nothing in the world was easier. They did not importune him. He was free to go his own way. Perhaps this also wounded him; perhaps it was to revenge himself that he sought to increase his popularity with the crowd; at night he sang with a sort of bravado to bring down the house; in the day-time it comforted him to perceive from a distance in that or the other window a goodly display of his photographs, which he had learned to recognize from afar. But in whatever direction these wayward moods drew him or tossed him, there was ever this all-pervading disquiet, and a haunting regret that almost savored of remorse, and a sick impatience of the slow-passing and lonely hours.

He had given up all hopes of hearing from Nina now or of gaining any news of her. Pandiani had nothing to tell him. The Signorina Antonia Rossi had not written to any of her Neapolitan friends, so far as could be ascertained, since the previous December; certainly she had not presented herself here in Naples to seek any engagement. The old maestro, in praying his illustrious and celebrated correspondent to accept his respectful submissions, likewise begged of him, should anything be