“No doubt,” said Arthur: “but when did I begin to own it? Up to the moment of its being put into the plate, it was the property of our host: while being offered round the table, it was, let us say, held in trust by the waiter: did it become mine when I accepted it? Or when it was placed before me? Or when I took the first spoonful?”
“He is a very argumentative young man!” was all the old lady would say: but she said it audibly, this time, feeling that Society had a right to know it.
Arthur smiled mischievously. “I shouldn’t mind betting you a shilling,” he said, “that the Eminent Barrister next you” (It certainly is possible to say words so as to make them begin with capitals!) “ca’n’t answer me!”
“I never bet,” she sternly replied.
“Not even sixpenny points at whist?”
“Never!” she repeated. “Whist is innocent enough: but whist played for money!” She shuddered.
Arthur became serious again. “I’m afraid I ca’n’t take that view,” he said. “I consider that the introduction of small stakes for card-playing was one of the most moral acts Society ever did, as Society.”
“How was it so?” said Lady Muriel.
“Because it took Cards, once for all, out of the category of games at which cheating is possible. Look at the way Croquet is demoralising Society. Ladies are beginning to cheat at it, terribly: and, if they’re found out, they only laugh, and call it fun. But when there’s money at stake, that is out of the question. The swindler is not accepted as a wit. When a man sits down to cards, and cheats his friends out of their money, he doesn’t get much fun out of it—unless he thinks it fun to be kicked down stairs!”
“If all gentlemen thought as badly of ladies as you do,” my neighbour remarked with some bitterness, “there would be very few—very few——.” She seemed doubtful how to end her sentence, but at last took “honeymoons” as a safe word.