To the credit of the two admirals they both glanced at Hornblower without replying.
“As you gentlemen wish,” said Hornblower.
“In that case I’m quite agreeable,” said Parry.
“Five shillings a trick, then,” said the colonel. “That makes the game worth playing.”
“The game is always worth playing,” protested Parry.
“Of course, my lord,” said the colonel, but without suggesting that they should revert to the previous stakes.
Now the stakes were really serious; by Bush’s calculation a really disastrous rubber might cost Hornblower twenty pounds, and his further calculation told him that Hornblower could hardly have more than twenty pounds tucked away in his breast pocket. It was a relief to him when Hornblower and Lambert won the next rubber easily.
“This is a most enjoyable evening,” said Lambert, and he smiled with a glance down at the fistful of the colonel’s money he was holding; “nor am I referring to any monetary gains.”
“Instructive as well as amusing,” said Parry, paying out to Hornblower.
Play proceeded, silently as ever, the silence only broken by the brief interchanges of remarks between rubbers. Now that he could afford it, fortunately, Hornblower lost a rubber, but it was a cheap one, and he immediately won another profitable one. His gains mounted steadily with hardly a setback. It was growing late, and Bush was feeling weary, but the players showed few signs of fatigue, and the flag lieutenant stayed on with the limitless patience he must have acquired during his present appointment, philosophic and fatalistic since he could not possibly do anything to accelerate his admiral’s decision to go to bed. The other players drifted away from the room; later still the curtained door opened and the gamblers from the inner room came streaming out, some noisy, some silent, and the Marquis made his appearance, silent and unruffled, to watch the final rubbers with unobtrusive interest, seeing to it that the candles were snuffed and fresh ones brought, and new cards ready on demand. It was Parry who first glanced at the clock.