CHAPTER V.
"BLACK WINS."
The fascination of the gaming-table was too much for him; all his sense of dignity vanished before it; even his very jealous rage seemed thus powerless against it. Humiliated as he felt at the idea of accepting charity from his rival, he could not reject it when it came to feed his passion for play. Although he had not a farthing in the house, although utter destitution threatened him, he would not, to save himself from it, have accepted Heath's assistance; but he could accept it when it enabled him to play.
To one of his old haunts he went. The first man he saw there was the large-whiskered, jovial, and eccentric gentleman whom he had noticed on the second evening: of his entering a house of play: he had since lost sight of him. The little man stroked his bushy whiskers fondly over his face, and, offering Cecil a pinch of snuff, expressed his pleasure at meeting him again.
"Come to try the goddess, sir?" he inquired. "Fickle goddess! now smiling, now frowning—quite a woman! I am no great hand myself; but, as far as a few crowns go, I find it a pleasant game—decidedly pleasant. Would you like to regulate yourself by my card?—duly pricked, you see. There have been three runs upon the black; once it turned up eleven times. Shall we take a glass of wine together? Yes;—waiter! some wine."
"No wine for me, thank you; I never touch it before dinner. Have you seen Mr. Forrester here to-day?"
"The gentleman with the large moustachios?—Yes; he has been playing, and won; but he went away about a quarter of an hour ago."
Cecil took his seat at the table. Gambling by day has, somehow, a more hideous aspect than by night: I suppose because it looks so little like an amusement, and so much like a mere affair of cupidity. But Cecil had grown used to this, as to other loathsome aspects of his vice, and sat down to the table with as much sang froid as if he were about to transact the most ordinary piece of business.
He had not been playing long, winning and losing in pretty equal succession, when Frank came back.
"What, again!" said Cecil. "I thought you had gone for the day: I heard you had departed with your winnings."