Mr. Comyn eyed him calmly. “You are merry, sir, but you mistake,” he said politely. “I believe I have a natural gravity which perhaps misleads you.”
“Devil a bit,” said his lordship. “I know all about you, my friend. Gone to France, hasn’t she? I see young Marling’s back again.”
Mr. Comyn compressed his lips. My lord laughed. “Don’t like him, do you? Well, it’s a dull dog.” He clapped Mr. Comyn on the shoulder. “You’ll forget the fair Juliana over a bottle. Tell you what, I’ll take you to Timothy’s.”
“I shall be happy to accompany your lordship,” bowed Mr. Comyn.
“You’re not in society until you’ve crossed that threshold,” Carlisle went on. “It’s the newest of the hells. Vidal and Fox made it the fashion. The play’s high; you’re not the man to mind that, I take it. All the same,” he added thoughtfully, “I’d not play at Vidal’s table if I were you. The pace he sets is a trifle too hot for most of us. Don’t know if you’ve run across the Devil’s Cub yet?”
“I had the honour of meeting his lordship at the drum last week,” said Mr. Comyn. “I shall be happy to renew my acquaintance with him.”
Carlisle stared. “Will you, by gad?” he said.
Timothy’s was a discreet-looking establishment in a street off St. James’s. An unobtrusive individual, casually strolling up and down the road, was pointed out to Mr. Comyn as the orderly-man, engaged to give warning if any constables approached. The windows were thickly curtained, but when a funereally clad porter admitted my Lord Carlisle and his protégé, Mr. Comyn fairly blinked at the blaze of lights within the house. The porter, who was clothed in black, rather startled him, but on the way upstairs my lord explained that this sombre livery was a whim of Mr. Fox’s, who was given to such conceits.
“Surely, sir, Mr. Fox is not the owner of a gaming-house?” said Mr. Comyn, greatly surprised.
“Oh no, but he’s Vidal’s crony, and Timothy, so I’m told, was in the Duke of Avon’s employ until he discovered in himself a genius for this sort of thing. Thus, you see, what Vidal or his intimates want is all that signifies to Master Timothy.”
They had reached the head of the stairway, and Lord Carlisle led the way into the first of the gaming-rooms. It was somewhat crowded, and was apparently given over to pharaoh and deep basset.
My lord passed through it, exchanging a greeting here and there, and led Mr. Comyn through an archway into a second and smaller apartment. The rattle of dice sounded here, and Mr. Comyn’s eye brightened. There was only one table, and that occupied the centre of the room, and was surrounded by a fair number of onlookers.
“H’m! Vidal’s bank,” grunted Carlisle. “Shouldn’t play if I were you.”
Mr. Comyn perceived my Lord Vidal at the end of the table, a glass at his elbow. His cravat was loosened, and a strand of lightly-powdered hair had escaped the riband that tied it in his neck. He wore a coat of purple velvet, heavily laced, and a flowered waistcoat, one or two of the buttons of which had come undone. He looked pale in the candle-light, and rather more dissipated than usual. He glanced up as Mr. Comyn drew near the table, but his eyes, which seemed unusually brilliant, betrayed no recognition.
Carlisle tugged at Mr. Comyn’s sleeve. “Better play pharaoh,” he muttered under his breath. “Vidal’s in a wild humour by the look of it. See who’s at the table? Oh! you wouldn’t know! Fellow beside Jack Bowling — red-faced fellow in a bag-wig. His name’s Quarles. There’s something of a bone lies between him and the Cub. There’ll be trouble before the morning. Best out of it.”
Mr. Comyn regarded the red-faced gentleman with interest. “But I hardly suppose, my lord, that I could be concerned in the trouble,” he said precisely.
“Oh lord, no! Just some pother over a wench that Vidal snapped from under Quarles’s nose.”
“I apprehend,” said Mr. Comyn, “that most of my Lord Vidal’s quarrels owe their existence to a female.”
He returned to the contemplation of the table. At Vidal’s right hand, Mr. Fox lolled in his chair, busy with a gold toothpick. He raised a languid hand in greeting to Carlisle. “Coming in, my lord? Take the bank?”
A heap of gold and paper lay before Vidal. Carlisle shook his head. “Not I, Fox.”
The Marquis tossed off what remained in his glass. “I’ll throw you for it,” he offered.
“I advise against it, my lard,” one of the players said mincingly. “Vidal has had the devil’s luck all this week.”
“I’m not dicing to-night,” Carlisle replied. “If you have a place at the table, Mr. Comyn here is of a mind to play.”
My lord paused in the act of refilling his glass, and again looked up at Mr. Comyn. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said carelessly. “I thought I knew you. Do you want to throw for the bank?”
“I thank your lordship, but I would prefer to throw against the bank,” replied Mr. Comyn, and sat down beside Lord Rupert Alastair.
Lord Carlisle, having done what he could to prevent his protégé from joining the table, shrugged fatalistically, and withdrew.
“Raise you to a hundred, gentlemen,” Vidal said, and lay back in his chair, feeling in his capacious coat-pocket for his snuff-box. He pulled it out, and opened it, and took a pinch, flashing a quick look round the table. A gentleman in puce satin, and a very large stock buckle, protested that fifty was deep enough.
Mr. Fox lifted weary eyebrows, and stretched out his hand for Vidal’s snuff-box. He regarded it closely, and remarked with a sigh: “Le Sueur.
Someone at the other end of the table said that the game went too deep, but was overruled.
“Standing out, Cholmondley?” asked the Marquis.
“By God, I’m not, then! You’ve too many of my notes under your hand, Vidal. Keep it at fifty.”
“Raising you to a hundred,” the Marquis repeated.
Mr. Fox took the dice. “A hundred it is, and those afraid of it stand out,” he drawled. He called a main of eight and threw fives. “Rot you, Vidal,” he said good-humouredly, and scribbled his name on a slip of paper, and pushed it across the table.
The red-faced gentleman seated midway down the table opposite Lord Rupert Alastair looked under his brows at the Marquis, and said loud enough to be heard: “I’d say it was time another man held the bank. This is a damned one-sided game.”
His neighbour, Mr. Bowling, saw the glitter in the Marquis’s eye, and nudged him warningly. “Easy, now, easy, Montague,” he said quietly. “Ever known the luck to run evenly?”
Someone standing amongst the spectators said beneath his breath: “Vidal’s three parts drunk. There’ll be trouble soon.”
Drunk the Marquis might be, but his speech and intellect were unimpaired. He lay back in his chair, one hand in his breeches pocket, the other with its long fingers curled round the stem of his wineglass; and his hard stare challenged the dissatisfied player. “Had enough, Quarles?”
The tone was an insult. Mr. Fox took snuff, and looked sideways under the incredible arch of his brows. Lord Rupert picked up the dice-box. “Ah, you’re wasting time. I’ll call seven.” He threw and lost. “Rabbit it, I’ve called ’em for the last hour, and the cursed dice turn up aces and threes.”
Montague Quarles said with bitter distinctness: “Enough? No, by God, but let someone else hold the bank! What do you say, gentlemen?” He looked round the table, but met with no response till Lord Cholmondley said gruffly: “I’m satisfied. Egad, I hope we know how to stand against a run of bad luck. Too much talk, is what I say.”
The Marquis was still looking at Montague Quarles. “There’s a matter of some four thousand pounds in the bank. Throw you for it.”
“Come, that’s fair enough!” declared a bluff man on the Marquis’s left.
Mr. Quarles said angrily: “Damned if I will! Not against you, my lord!”
“My God, do we sit all night arguing?” Bowling cried. “Let’s be done with this!” He took up the dice-box, called a main and threw. Vidal pushed a little pile of guineas towards him, and the game went on.
Money passed backwards and forwards, but the bank was still an easy winner at the end of a couple of hours’ play. The Marquis was drinking steadily. So were several others, notably Mr. Quarles, whose scowl deepened with each glass. On the Marquis the wine seemed to have little or no effect, His hand was steady enough, and there was only that glitter in his eyes to betray to one who knew him how much he had drunk.
My Lord Rupert, another heavy drinker, had reached the rollicking stage, and was sitting with his wig askew.
