"O, I'm all right," said he, with a reckless laugh, in reply to his comrades' bantering. "Give me a chance there—can't you?"
For he was bent on winning back his watch. It seemed that nothing short of the impossible could turn him aside from that intent. The players made room for him, and he prepared his counters, and took up his cards.
"What do you do, Frank?" was asked impatiently; all were waiting for him.
What ailed the boy? He held his cards, but he was not looking at them. His eyes were not on the board, nor on his companions, nor on any object there. But he was staring with a pallid, intense expression—at something. There were anguish, and alarm, and yearning affection in his look. His hair was disordered, his countenance was white and amazed; his comrades were astonished as they watched him.
"What's the matter, Frank? what's the matter?"
Their importunity brought him to himself.
"Did you see?" he asked in a whisper.
They had seen nothing that he had seen. Then it was all an illusion? a fragment of his drunken dreams? But no drunken dream was ever like that.
"Yes, I'll play," he said, trying to collect himself thinking that he would forget the illusion, and remembering he had his watch to win back.
But his heart failed him. His brain, his hand failed him also. Absolutely, he could not play.