A tear stood in Cecil's eye, and he hiccupped. He was debating with himself whether he should give the unhappy youth a chance of recovering his gains. At last, slipping a half sovereign into his hand, he said,—
"There—risk that. But if you win back your money, promise me solemnly never to play again. You may not another time find one to give you a chance."
The bloodshot eyes of the youth flashed fire as he saw the piece of gold in his hand. He tried to utter his thanks, but a sort of gurgling murmur was all that escaped. He instantly went to the table and began to play. Cecil, interested in his fate, stood beside him.
He won, and won, and won. In a quarter of an hour, in spite of several losses, he had recovered his seventeen pounds, and five more with them. He repaid Cecil the half sovereign, and clasping his hand, said fervently:—"God bless you! you have saved a fellow-creature!" and ran rather than walked out of the house.
No sooner had he departed than, strange inconsistency! Cecil began to play.
The young man's presence had been a restraint on him, which not even the intoxicating sight of the gold could overcome. He had presented himself as a Mentor to that young man, and could not in his presence descend from the pedestal; accordingly he was irritably anxious for his protégé to win, and to depart. All the time he had been standing at the table, a sort of fever of cupidity possessed him. He staked imaginary sums, and always, or almost always, won. Yes, even with the game played before him, he juggled with himself almost as much as when alone in his atélier he played those successful games. Whoever has stood at a table where a game of chance is being played, and has, in imagination only, participated, must remember this:—We choose a side; if it is victorious, we reflect how great would have been our gain; if it is unsuccessful, we say to ourselves, "There would have been a loss;" but we do not, to our minds, realize that loss with anything like the vividness with which we realize the gain; and, moreover, we constantly shelter ourselves under the idea that "most likely we should not, after all, have chosen that side."
This was the process going on in Cecil's mind as he stood by that table, and saw the game played; and he was impatient for his protégé to begone: so impatient that he cared not whether the youth won or lost; and indeed at one period when the losses were frequent, he was rather disappointed to see a gain follow them, because it deferred the youth's exit. Such is human egotism!
No sooner was he freed from this restraint than, heedless of the whispers of his conscience, he flung down a sovereign, and was soon absorbed in the game.
Frank presently came round to him, having lost back twenty pounds which he had won, and now begged another loan. Cecil took up a dozen sovereigns from the heap before him, and handed them to him with a caution to be careful.
Till deep in the night they played, and Cecil left the house a winner of sixty pounds. Frank had lost the twelve lent him, and was savage against fate. Cecil, half intoxicated as he was, and glorying in his winnings, still felt a pressing sense of remorse, at having been seduced. But he vowed that it should never recur again; and told Frank if ever he proposed to go into another gaming-house, from that instant their friendship would be at an end.