"Yes, I play well," quietly answered the captain. "I used to play a great deal when with my regiment. But you are stronger at it than I am."
Cecil thought so, but would not acknowledge it. Nevertheless, the captain won three games in succession, which considerably irritated his antagonist, who began to swear at the chalk, to abuse the table, to change his cues frequently, and to throw the blame of his non-success upon anything and everything except his want of skill.
The captain, who was critically observing him throughout the game to see if his opinion was well or ill founded, smiled scornfully at all these ebullitions. He had judged rightly in assuming that the best moment for observing a man's real character is during a game of chance and skill combined. Then it is that a man unbends, and shows himself as he really is. The self-love is implicated; and, as both vanity and money are at stake, you see a mind acting under the impulsion of two of its most powerful stimulants. Cecil, who was both vain and weak, was betrayed into a hundred little expressions of his character; and, as he was also somewhat less than delicate—without being at all dishonourable—in money matters, he led the captain to think ill of him on that score.
Having made up his mind as to Cecil's real worth, he determined to put him to the trial on a matter in which he was himself directly interested.
"Have you ever played with Violet?" he asked. "She is a wonderful hand. But then she does everything well. (I doubt whether I can make this cannon—yes, there it is.) What a splendid creature she is! Isn't she?"
"Splendid, indeed! They are all three lovely girls, though in such different styles."
"(How stands the game? Seven, love: good.) What a sad thing it is, though, to think such girls should be absolutely without fortune. (Good stroke!)"
Cecil was chalking his cue when this bomb fell at his feet; he suspended that operation, and said,—
"What do you mean by their having no fortune?"
"Why, the estate is entailed, and Vyner, who is already greatly in debt, will neither have saved any money to leave them when he dies, nor be able to give them anything but their trousseaux when they marry."