"A doublet!"
Oaths and stifled exclamations accompanied the word. Brought to her senses by curiosity and apprehension, Esther opened her eyes and beheld a remarkable spectacle. It was a vast hall lighted by several lamps suspended from the ceiling. The light, gathered by immense reflectors of tin, fell full upon a long table placed in the centre of the apartment. This table was covered with a green cloth crossed with white lines. Seven or eight men were seated about it, each one having at his side a bowl full of gold pieces and a small tray bearing a cup of tea, a glass, and a flask of brandy. They were engaged in a game of faro.
Nothing could have been more singular than their appearance and attire. Nearly every man wore a large straw hat to screen his eyes from the dazzling light, and perhaps to mask his emotions at the same time; but the most ridiculous part of it was that two or three of the younger gamesters had seen fit to decorate their hats with flowers and ribbons after the fashion of the shepherdesses in the opera. Certain persons, attired with studied refinement, wore leathern cuffs to avoid soiling the lace at their wrists. God save the mark! They would consent to lose a castle in the course of an evening, but would hesitate to spoil a pair of Chantilly ruffles. Others seemed to have lost all respect for themselves. One young man who sat opposite Esther, a sort of good-natured athlete, with big, sensual jaws, and whose tanned face, especially his brow and glance, shone with intelligence and audacity, was so negligent in his attire that his hairy chest appeared beneath his open shirt. Another, an older man, wore his coat turned inside out, through superstitious fancy, as every one was aware; while more than one, with hands concealed beneath the table, feverishly fingered some sort of talisman.
These men appeared to have heard nothing,—neither the cries of the mob, the invasion of the house, the charge of the Guards, nor the entrance of a strange woman into the very room where they were playing. What mattered it all to them? What did it all amount to in comparison with a doublet? As infatuated as Horace's wise man, the end of the world would not have interrupted their game.
Esther felt that her presence was as unperceived as though a charm had rendered her invisible, like the living being whose terrible fate had conducted him on board of the phantom ship. Therefore without a qualm of fear she permitted herself to enjoy the novel scene.
At this moment the banker's côteau raked in all the stakes, the rare and fortunate result of drawing two similar cards from his right and left.
"Used up!" exclaimed a stout man with a prodigious sigh, his bowl being empty. In the speaker Esther recognized Stephen Fox, whom she had seen at Drury Lane. His brother, Charles James, the eminent orator, the man with the open shirt, gayly smote his shoulder.
"Shylock will make you a loan," he said; "you have more than a pound of flesh to offer him as security!"
Instead of a laugh, Charley's joke was received with a grunt of approbation.
One man alone seemed insensible to the incidents of the game. This was a gentleman of some sixty years, dressed in accordance with the latest Parisian mode. In him Esther recognized George Selwyn, who had been one of the most amiable, one of the wittiest men of his time, but was now absorbed and besotted by a passion more potent than that of gaming.