She nodded.
"Euchre! Yes, euchre!" She drew a chair up to the table and sat down. "What stakes?"
Asshlin looked uncertain.
"You say!" he suggested a little diffidently.
She gave a nervous start, as a fresh gale shook the windows.
"Thirty shillings a game? Twenty shillings a game?"
For an instant he looked at her amazed; but seeing the unconsciousness of her expression, his breeding forbade him to offer any objection. With a reckless excitement he had never before had opportunity to feel, he leant back in his chair, and taking up the glass Burke had set beside him, poured out some port and drank it.
"Thirty shillings a game!" he said magnificently.
Clodagh did not seem to hear; certainly she saw nothing of his scruple and his yielding. Her own thoughts rode and spurred her, pressing her forward in a wild, panic-stricken search for oblivion.
"Come, Larry! Play!—play! I feel"—she paused and laughed hysterically—"I feel that, if I were a man to-night, I should drink all the port in that bottle! I want to forget everything. Play!—play!"