“I suppose you are fond of cards.”
“What would you expect?” asked Ricardo in a simple, philosophical tone. “It is likely I should not be?” Then, with sudden fire: “Fond of cards? Ay, passionately!”
The effect of this outburst was augmented by the quiet lowering of the eyelids, by a reserved pause as though this had been a confession of another kind of love. Schomberg cudgelled his brains for a new topic, but he could not find one. His usual scandalous gossip would not serve this turn. That desperado did not know anyone anywhere within a thousand miles. Schomberg was almost compelled to keep to the subject.
“I suppose you've always been so—from your early youth.”
Ricardo's eyes remained cast down. His fingers toyed absently with the pack on the table.
“I don't know that it was so early. I first got in the way of it playing for tobacco—in forecastles of ships, you know—common sailor games. We used to spend whole watches below at it, round a chest, under a slush lamp. We would hardly spare the time to get a bite of salt horse—neither eat nor sleep. We could hardly stand when the watches were mustered on deck. Talk of gambling!” He dropped the reminiscent tone to add the information, “I was bred to the sea from a boy, you know.”
Schomberg had fallen into a reverie, but without losing the sense of impending calamity. The next words he heard were:
“I got on all right at sea, too. Worked up to be mate. I was mate of a schooner—a yacht, you might call her—a special good berth too, in the Gulf of Mexico, a soft job that you don't run across more than once in a lifetime. Yes, I was mate of her when I left the sea to follow him.”
Ricardo tossed up his chin to indicate the room above; from which Schomberg, his wits painfully aroused by this reminder of Mr. Jones's existence, concluded that the latter had withdrawn into his bedroom. Ricardo, observing him from under lowered eyelids, went on:
“It so happened that we were shipmates.”