“And keep my mouth shut in any circumstance...”
They cut, and Matheson dealt.
This gamble, with its odd stakes and uncertain issue, was like no other game he had ever engaged in. He felt as a man might feel who stakes life or liberty upon a chance without sufficient justification. Possibly it was because in some subconscious way he realised that it was honour that was at stake that made the issue of such tremendous importance to him. He had to win. He would not admit the possibility of failure.
In silence he took up his cards. His features were tense. The perspiration started on his forehead, on the backs of his hands, on his arms: there was an anxious look in his eyes, a suggestion of nervousness in his laboured breathing. In striking contrast, the calm of his opponent’s manner was manifest in the deliberate way in which he looked over his hand and calculated its value. His luck still held; the advantage of the cards lay with him...
Later, with the excitement of the play past, the eager curiosity of indeterminate results changed to the unpleasant actuality of accepted defeat, Matheson was aware that he had lost more than a mere game, even a game with big stakes depending thereon. Although he had regained one-half of his former losses, he felt poorer than when on the previous day he had acknowledged that he was cleaned out. He stood pledged now to a service about which he knew nothing save its undeniably shady nature; he had agreed, moreover, not to attempt to learn more concerning it. The unwisdom of the undertaking struck him as it had not done when upheld with the belief that he would win and so be relieved of the obligation. He was committed to the carrying out of a piece of egregious folly which might lead to any wild complication, and force him into an unwilling co-operation with persons whose views were opposed to his own. Distrust of Holman grew in him. He could not give a name to his doubt, but the doubt existed: he resented having allowed himself to become the man’s tool.
Holman made some comment on the unaccountability of luck, and, looking up to answer him, Matheson became aware of a small face, flushed and half averted, of a pair of disapproving brown eyes surveying their grouping with disfavour, as their owner passed close by the scene of the gamble and continued her way over the hot sands. Matheson got up.
“I’ll see you at the hotel,” he said, slipping into his coat. And without waiting for any response, he followed the girl and speedily overtook her.
“So the injury didn’t amount to much after all,” he said, meeting her eyes with a smile as she turned an inquiring face in his direction, and then halted and shook hands with him. “I am glad to see you are able to walk without inconvenience.”
“Oh! the bite was nothing. I rested yesterday; but it wasn’t really necessary. However, I don’t mean to walk far; it is too hot.”
“The best time is the evening,” he said, keeping beside her when she started to walk again. “It was jolly on the beach last night. I tramped out after dinner,” he explained, observing her surprise. “Do you ever come down here in the dusk?”