He looked around him. There seemed to be something hollow to-night in these trappings of tinsel; and something not only hollow, but sardonic in his connection with them—that he should act as a monitor over the honesty of those who in turn acted as the agents of Larmon in an already illicit traffic.
“Oh, hell!” said John Bruce suddenly.
The dealer looked up from the table, surprise mingling with polite disapproval. Several of the players screwed around their heads.
“That's what I say!” snarled one of the latter with an added oath, as a large stack of chips was swept away from him.
Some one touched John Bruce on the elbow. He turned around. It was one of the attendants.
“You are being asked for downstairs, Mr. Bruce,” the man informed him.
John Bruce followed the attendant. In the hall below the white-haired negro doorkeeper came toward him.
“I done let him in, Mistuh Bruce, suh,” the old darky explained a little anxiously, “'cause he done say, Mistuh Bruce, that it was a case of most particular illness, suh, and——”
John Bruce did not wait for more. It was Veniza probably—a turn for the worse. He nodded, and passed hurriedly along the hall to where, near the door, a poorly dressed man, hat in hand and apparently somewhat ill at ease in his luxurious surroundings, stood waiting.
“I am Mr. Bruce,” he said quickly. “Some one is critically ill, you say? Is it Mr. Veniza?”