And he—Sir John Ayloffe—gambler on his beam ends, would henceforth look forward to a comfortable old age with Mistress Julia Peyton's twelve thousand pounds carefully placed at interest so that there might be no temptation to dribble it away.
All was for the best in the best possible world!
CHAPTER XIV
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
—Macbeth IV. 1.
But there was one more card which Ayloffe, the gambler, desired to play ere he lost sight momentarily of the man who was to be his tool in the carving of their respective fortunes.
He now rose from the table and went up to the door which gave on the private parlour. This he opened and looked in. Just as he had anticipated, there was but little change in the attitude of the three gentlemen whom he had left in the room.
Sir Anthony Wykeham still sat moodily leaning back in his chair, a shade more confused in his brain than he had been before, his eyes more shifty and uncertain in expression. A couple of empty bottles in front of him mutely explained the reason for this gradual change in the emphatic moraliser of a while ago.