“I have had desperate ill-luck! I am distinguishing myself greatly in Iturburua.”
“Let me be, gamester!” said Leon angrily shaking the arm his companion was holding. “I am not in the humour for jesting—and do not intend to lend you any more money. Has the Marqués de Fúcar left the table?”
“He is just going to his room. I never saw a man have such crushing good-luck. This is the way with the country—to-night I represent the country. Alas! poor Spain!—Solés has won enormously; since they made him governor of a province he has had tremendous luck; his victims are Fontán, X—— and I. But it is early yet. Leon, go up and fetch some more shot from the locker.”
Leon did not reply; his mind was disturbed; but his thoughts were far from the ignoble ideas which agitated his companion. Instead of going upstairs as Federico had asked him, he went with him into the card-room. One of the ‘victims’ was snoring on a sofa; the other was saying good-night, with a voice and demeanour that did justice to a diabolical temper; but he did not hurry himself and wrapped up elaborately, as a protection against the night air.
The two friends were left alone.
“I shall not play,” said Leon shortly.
Cimarra, knowing Leon Roch’s tenacious nature resigned himself to his fate, and seating himself by the table he took up the cards and began turning them over in his slender and exquisitely-kept hands. A large ring on his little finger reflected a pale light from the lamp, by this time burning low, and with his eyes fixed on the pack, he dealt and shuffled and shuffled and dealt so as to make an infinite variety of combinations. The cards seemed plastic in his hands and obedient to his touch.
“It is not my fault—it is not my fault!” muttered Leon gloomily from the corner of a sofa on which he had dropped, evidently much disturbed and agitated.
“What is not your fault?” asked Federico looking up in amazement. “Something has gone wrong with you old fellow—where have you been?”