The servant made no comment, but as Mr. Snaffle went upstairs, he reported to the steward that the intruder was again in the house and had been introduced by Mr. Fenton. The steward in turn reported this to the Secretary, and before Arthur himself came in, a rod was already preparing for him in the shape of a complaint to be made before the Executive Committee.
It was thus that precisely the thing happened which Fenton had with his usual cleverness endeavored to guard against. Impudent as Mr. Snaffle was capable of being, he would never have ventured uninvited into the precincts of the St. Filipe Club, where even when introduced he found himself somewhat overpowered by the social standing and the lofty manners of those around him. This feeling of awe showed itself in two ways, had any one been clever enough to appreciate the fact. It rendered him unusually silent, and it induced him to play high, as if he felt under obligations to pay for his admission into company where he did not belong.
It was to this last fact that he owed his invitation to be present on this particular evening. Arthur Fenton was going to the club to play poker, urged partly by the love of excitement and perhaps even more by the hope of raising a part or the whole of the fifty dollars of which he had pressing need, when he encountered Snaffle standing on a street corner. Fenton's acquaintance with the man had been confined to their meetings in the card-room of the St. Filipe, but he had once or twice carried home in his pocket very substantial tokens of Snaffle's reckless play. Almost without being conscious of what he did, Fenton stopped and extended his hand.
"Good evening," he said. "What is up? Are you ready for your revenge?"
"Oh, I'm always ready for a good game," Snaffle answered. "I was going to see my best girl, but I don't mind taking a hand instead."
Fenton smiled as the other turned and walked with him toward the club, but inwardly he loathed the fat, vulgar man at his side. His sense of the fitness of things was outraged by his being obliged to associate with such a creature, and that the obligation arose entirely from his own will, only showed to his mind how helpless he was in the hands of fate. He was outwardly gracious enough, but inwardly he nourished a bitter hatred against Erastus Snaffle for constraining him to go through this humiliation before he could win his money.
As they neared the club, Fenton recalled the fact that there had been some talk about visitors, and that the presence of this very man had been especially objected to, and reflected that in any case he had no desire to be seen going in with him. As they entered the vestibule the door was not opened for them, and Fenton's quick wit appreciated the fact that the servant who should be sitting just inside, was not in his place. With an inward ejaculation of satisfaction at this good fortune, he put his hand to his breast pocket.
"Oh, pshaw!" he exclaimed. "There are those confounded letters I promised to post. You go in, Mr. Snaffle, and I'll go back to the letter box on the corner. You know the way, and you'll find the fellows in the first card-room."
He opened the door as he spoke, and as Snaffle entered and closed it after him, Fenton ran down the steps and walked to the next corner. He had no letters to mail, but it was characteristic of his dramatic way of doing things that he walked to the letter-box, raised the drop and went through the motion of slipping in an envelope. He was accustomed to say that when one played a part it could not be done too carefully, and it amused him to reflect that if he were watched his action would appear consistent with his words, while if he were timed he would be found to have been gone from the club house exactly long enough. Not that he supposed anybody was likely to take the trouble to do either of these things, but Fenton was an imaginative man and he found a humorous pleasure in finishing even his trickery in an artistic manner.
It was Saturday night, and just before midnight a servant opened the card-room door. The room was full of smoke, empty glasses stood beside the players, and piles of red and blue and white "chips" were heaped in uneven distribution along the edges of the table.