After spending an hour or so tête-à-tête with her, he would drive down to the club, or into the Park; dine at the club, and spend his night at the Strangers', to which he had recently been admitted, and where he played fifty pound stakes with a recklessness which astonished most of the players, but which, on the whole, was attended with success. One night he carried off eight hundred pounds.
So large a sum in his possession betrayed to Blanche the source of his sudden prosperity. She had before been uneasy: doubts had crossed her mind; the abundance of money, coupled with his obvious idleness, looked very unlike an artist's gains, and now this eight hundred pounds threw a flash of light on the mystery.
"Cecil, dearest Cecil," she said timidly, "relieve me from my suspense—did you gain this money at play?"
He looked angrily at her, and, puffing forth a column of smoke, said,—
"How else should I gain it?"
She was silent. He continued to smoke fiercely for a minute or so, and then said, sneeringly,—
"Did you fancy money was to be gained by art? Did you imagine I was going to follow the example of all the other fools, and wear out my life in a miserable contest for a beggar's pittance? Painting would never support me; it is all very well for the mechanical fellows who make it a trade; I could never do that; and I have no inclination to starve—there is you to think of—and our child."
Blanche could not reply; every phrase was a stab in her heart; she saw ruin and dishonour scowling upon them, and felt their descent was not to be averted.
"I was born a gentleman, thank God!" he continued, throwing away the end of his cigar, and rising from the sofa as he spoke; "I was bred a gentleman, and, damme, I will live like a gentleman!"
With this very gentlemanly, honourable sentiment, he walked out of the room.