“Ecarte!—well, with pleasure,” said Ferrers.
Ferrers played well.
The conversation ended in a moment. The little party gathered round the table—all, except Valerie and Maltravers. The chairs that were vacated left a kind of breach between them; but still they were next to each other, and they felt embarrassed, for they felt alone.
“Do you never play?” asked Madame de Ventadour, after a pause.
“I have played,” said Maltravers, “and I know the temptation. I dare not play now. I love the excitement, but I have been humbled at the debasement: it is a moral drunkenness that is worse than the physical.”
“You speak warmly.”
“Because I feel keenly. I once won of a man I respected, who was poor. His agony was a dreadful lesson to me. I went home, and was terrified to think I had felt so much pleasure in the pain of another. I have never played since that night.”
“So young and so resolute!” said Valerie, with admiration in her voice and eyes; “you are a strange person. Others would have been cured by losing, you were cured by winning. It is a fine thing to have principle at your age, Mr. Maltravers.”
“I fear it was rather pride than principle,” said Maltravers. “Error is sometimes sweet; but there is no anguish like an error of which we feel ashamed. I cannot submit to blush for myself.”
“Ah!” muttered Valerie; “this is the echo of my own heart!” She rose and went to the window. Maltravers paused a moment, and followed her. Perhaps he half thought there was an invitation in the movement.