“Gentlemen should always pay their debts at cards.”
“And if they cannot?”
“Then they must keep score of the amount and discharge it when they are able. Look you, young man, everything else you may forget, but what you lose over the dice is a debt of honour. There lives no man who can say that I cheated him of a guilder at cards, though I fear some others have my name standing in their books.”
When they rose from their game that night Adrian had won between three and four hundred florins. Next day his winnings amounted to a thousand florins, for which his father gave him a carefully-executed note of hand; but at the third sitting the luck changed or perhaps skill began to tell, and he lost two thousand florins. These he paid up by returning his father’s note, his own winnings, and all the balance of the purse of gold which his mother had given to him when he was driven from the house, so that now he was practically penniless.
The rest of the history may be guessed. At every game the stakes were increased, for since Adrian could not pay, it was a matter of indifference to him how much he wagered. Moreover, he found a kind of mild excitement in playing at the handling of such great sums of money. By the end of a week he had lost a queen’s dowry. As they rose from the table that night his father filled in the usual form, requested him to be so good as to sign it, and a sour-faced woman who had arrived at the mill, Adrian knew not whence, to do the household work, to put her name as witness.
“What is the use of this farce?” asked Adrian. “Brant’s treasure would scarcely pay that bill.”
His father pricked his ears.
“Indeed? I lay it at as much again. What is the use? Who knows—one day you might become rich, for, as the great Emperor said, ‘Fortune is a woman who reserves her favours for the young,’ and then, doubtless, being the man of honour that you are, you would wish to pay your old gambling debts.”
“Oh! yes, I should pay if I could,” answered Adrian with a yawn. “But it seems hardly worth while talking about, does it?” and he sauntered out of the place into the open air.
His father rose, and, standing by the great peat fire, watched him depart thoughtfully.