“Of course she understands,” said Mr. Palliser. “How can she help it? And, indeed, Miss Vavasor, I am more unhappy than I can express myself, to think that your comfort should be disturbed in this way.”
“Upon my word I think Alice is doing very well,” said Lady Glencora. “What is there to hurt her comfort? Nobody scolds her. Nobody tells her that she is a fool. She never jokes, or does anything wicked, and, of course, she isn’t punished.”
Mr. Palliser, as he wandered that day alone through the gambling-rooms at the great Assembly House, thought that, after all, it might have been better for him to have remained in London, to have become Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to have run all risks.
“I wonder whether it would be any harm if I were to put a few pieces of money on the table, just once?” Lady Glencora said to her cousin, on the evening of the same day, in one of those gambling salons. There had been some music on that evening in one side of the building, and the Pallisers had gone to the rooms. But as neither of the two ladies would dance, they had strayed away into the other apartments.
“The greatest harm in the world!” said Alice; “and what on earth could you gain by it? You don’t really want any of those horrid people’s money?”
“I’ll tell you what I want—something to live for—some excitement. Is it not a shame that I see around me so many people getting amusement, and that I can get none? I’d go and sit out there, and drink beer and hear the music, only Plantagenet wouldn’t let me. I think I’ll throw one piece on to the table to see what becomes of it.”
“I shall leave you if you do,” said Alice.
“You are such a prude! It seems to me as if it must have been my special fate—my good fate, I mean—that has thrown me so much with you. You look after me quite as carefully as Mr. Bott and Mrs. Marsham ever did; but as I chose you myself, I can’t very well complain, and I can’t very well get rid of you.”
“Do you want to get rid of me, Cora?”
“Sometimes. Do you know, there are moments when I almost make up my mind to go headlong to the devil—when I think it is the best thing to be done. It’s a hard thing for a woman to do, because she has to undergo so much obloquy before she gets used to it. A man can take to drinking, and gambling and all the rest of it, and nobody despises him a bit. The domestic old fogies give him lectures if they can catch him, but he isn’t fool enough for that. All he wants is money, and he goes away and has his fling. Now I have plenty of money—or, at any rate, I had—and I never got my fling yet. I do feel so tempted to rebel, and go ahead, and care for nothing.”
“Throwing one piece on to the table wouldn’t satisfy that longing.”
“You think I should be like the wild beast that has tasted blood, and can’t be controlled. Look at all these people here. There are husbands gambling, and their wives don’t know it; and wives gambling, and their husbands don’t know it. I wonder whether Plantagenet ever has a fling? What a joke it would be to come and catch him!”
“I don’t think you need be afraid.”
“Afraid! I should like him all the better for it. If he came to me, some morning, and told me that he had lost a hundred thousand pounds, I should be so much more at my ease with him.”
“You have no chance in that direction, I’m quite sure.”
“None the least. He’d make a calculation that the chances were nine to seven against him, and then the speculation would seem to him to be madness.”
“I don’t suppose he’d wish to try, even though he were sure of winning.”
“Of course not. It would be a very vulgar kind of thing then. Look—there’s an opening there. I’ll just put on one napoleon.”
“You shall not. If you do, I’ll leave you at once. Look at the women who are playing. Is there one there whom it would not disgrace you to touch? Look what they are. Look at their cheeks, and their eyes, and their hands. Those men who rake about the money are bad enough, but the women look like fiends.”
“You’re not going to frighten me in that hobgoblin sort of way, you know. I don’t see anything the matter with any of the people.”
“What do you think of that young woman who has just got a handful of money from the man next to her?”
“I think she is very happy. I never get money given to me by handfuls, and the man to whom I belong gives me no encouragement when I want to amuse myself.” They were now standing near to one end of the table, and suddenly there came to be an opening through the crowd up to the table itself. Lady Glencora, leaving Alice’s side, at once stepped up and deposited a piece of gold on one of the marked compartments. As soon as she placed it she retreated again with flushed face, and took hold of Alice’s arm. “There,” she said, “I have done it.” Alice, in her dismay, did not know what step to take. She could not scold her friend now, as the eyes of many were turned upon them, nor could she, of course, leave her, as she had threatened. Lady Glencora laughed with her peculiar little low laughter, and stood her ground. “I was determined you shouldn’t frighten me out of it,” she said.
One of the ministers at the table had in the meantime gone on with the cards, and had called the game; and another minister had gently pushed three or four more pieces of gold
