Yet when after those few unpleasant moments of hesitation Lambert boldly accepted the situation and with much simple dignity took his seat at the table, everyone immediately accepted him as an equal, nor did anyone question his right to sit there on terms of equality with Lord Walterton or Sir Michael Isherwood.
His own state of mind was very remarkable at the moment.
Of course he disapproved of what he did: he would not have been the Puritanically trained, country-bred lad that he was, if he had accepted with an easy conscience the idea of tossing about money from hand to hand, money that he could in no sense afford to lose, or money that no one was making any honest effort to win.
He knew—somewhat vaguely perhaps, yet with some degree of certainty—that gambling was an illicit pastime, and that therefore he—by sitting at this table with these gentlemen, was deliberately contravening the laws of his country.
Against all that, it is necessary to note that Richard Lambert took two matters very much in earnest: first, his position as a paid dependent; second, his gratitude to Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse.
And both these all-pervading facts combined to force him against his will into this anomalous position of gentlemanly gambler, which suited neither his temperament nor his principles.
With it all Lambert's was one of those dispositions, often peculiar to those who have led an isolated and introspective life, which never do anything half-heartedly; and just as he took his somewhat empty secretarial duties seriously, so did he look on this self-imposed task, against which his better judgment rebelled, with earnestness and determination.
He listened attentively to the preliminary explanations given him sotto voce by Endicott. Segrave in the meanwhile had taken the latter's place at the head of the table. He had put all his money in front of him, some two hundred and sixty pounds all told, for his winnings during the last half hour had not been as steady as heretofore, and he had not yet succeeded altogether in making up that sum of money for which he yearned with all the intensity of a disturbed conscience, eager to redeem one miserable fault by another hardly more avowable.
He shuffled the cards and dealt just as Endicott had done.
"Now will you look at your card, young sir," said Endicott, who stood behind Lambert's chair, whispering directions in his ear. "A splendid card, begad! and one on which you must stake freely. . . . Nay! nay! that is not enough," he added, hurriedly restraining the young man's hand, who had timidly pushed a few silver coins forward. "'Tis thus you must do!"