“You’re just too good to go that way, Timothy,” she went on. “There are lots of chances that a man can take in this world, in matching his brains, his strength and his skill against other men, and when he wins his stake is safe. He doesn’t lose it the next day or the next month, and he’s picking winners all the time, Timothy.”
His first inclination was to be nettled. She was wounding the tender skin of his vanity, and he was startled to discover how tender a skin that was. All that she said was true and less than true. She could not guess how far his mind and inclination were from commonplace labour and how very little work came into the calculations of his future. He looked upon a job as a thing not to be held and developed into something better, but as a stopgap between two successful chances. He was almost shocked when this truth came home to him. The girl was nervous, and painfully anxious not to hurt him, and yet well aware that she was rubbing a sore place.
“Timothy, for your sake, as well as for mine, for you’re a friend of mine, I want to be proud of you, to see you past this present phase of life. Mrs. Renfrew speaks of you as a gambler, and says your name, even at your age, is well known as one who would rather bet than buy. That isn’t true, Timothy, is it?”
She put her hand on his and looked into his face. He did not meet her eyes.
“I think that is true, Mary,” he said steadily. “How it comes to be true, I don’t quite know. I suppose I have drifted a little over the line, and I’m grateful to you for pulling me up. Oh, no, I don’t regret the past—it has all been useful—and I have made good on chances, but I see there are other chances that a man can take than putting his money on the pace of a horse or backing against zero. Maybe, when I get back to London I’ll settle down into a respectable citizen and keep hens or something.”
He was speaking seriously, though at first she thought he was being sarcastic.
“And you won’t gamble again?” she asked.
He hesitated to reply.
“That isn’t fair,” she said quickly. “I mean it isn’t fair of me to ask you. It is almost cruel,” she smiled, “to let you go to Monte Carlo and ask you not to put money on the tables. But promise me, Timothy, that when I tell you to stop playing, you will stop.”
“Here’s my hand on it,” said Timothy, brightening up already at the prospect of being allowed to gamble at all. “Hereafter——” He raised his hand solemnly. “By the way,” he asked, “do you know a lady named Madame Serpilot?”