The Promoter began to talk of investments, telling stories of great coups made by men who had the daring.
"Not necessary for them to have the money, I suppose?" queried the Philosopher.
"Not at all," agreed the Promoter. "Life's a game of poker. If you're not afraid to sit in, and have the nerve to bluff it through, you can win out with a hand that would make a quitter commit suicide."
Althea listened with pride to her husband's discourse. "He's a man of the world," one could see she was thinking, "who is making the eyes drop out of the heads of these simple people."
"I'm so impressed," said the Skeptic to me, "that I can hardly eat. Think of living in a place like this—having this every day—common, like the dust under your feet. Can I ever eat creamed codfish and johnny-cake again, think you? Hepatica must name the hash by a French name and serve me grape juice with it, or I can't condescend to eat it. I say—the smoke is getting a bit thick here for you ladies, isn't it?"
We had been late in coming down, and at many tables people were nearing the end of the dinner. For some time the odour of expensive cigars had been growing heavier throughout the room; a blue haze hung over the more distant tables.
"I don't think my lungs mind it so much as my feelings," I answered. "I shall never be able to make it seem to me just—just——"
"Try to subdue the expression which dominates your countenance at the present moment," counselled the Skeptic gently, "or you will be quietly led away from the scene as dangerous to your fellow-men."
After what seemed like many hours we reached the end of the dinner. I felt that I should be glad to reach the quiet and comparative purity of air to be found in the room in which our hosts had received us—a private drawing-room. But this was not to be. We were taken from place to place about the hotel, to look in on this or that scene of entertainment, of banqueting, of revelry. Gorgeousness upon gorgeousness was revealed to us. Althea, now very gay and sparkling in manner, her carefully dressed hair a little loosened, her mind full of schemes for our diversion, took the lead, showing off everything with that air of personal possession I have often observed in the frequenters of hostelries like the Amazon.
Hepatica, in spite of evident effort to maintain her part, grew a trifle silent. As I regarded her I was reminded of a white dove in the company of a pair of peacocks. The Philosopher adjusted his eyeglasses from time to time as if they did not fit well; he seemed to feel his vision growing distorted. I became intensely fatigued with it all, and found myself longing for a quiet corner and a book. As for the Skeptic—but the Skeptic was incorrigible.