Sir Reginald Eversleigh played his cards very cautiously. It was only after he had instilled a taste for gambling into his kinsman's breast that he ventured to introduce him to the fashionable gaming-house presided over by Paulina Durski.
The introduction had a sinister effect upon his destiny. He had passed unscathed through the furnace of London life; many women had sought to obtain power over him; but his heart was still in his own keeping when he first crossed the threshold of Hilton House.
He saw Paulina Durski, and loved her. He loved her from the very first with a deep and faithful affection, as far above the selfish fancy of Reginald Eversleigh as the heaven is above the earth.
But she was no longer mistress of her heart. That was given to the man whose baseness she knew, and whom she loved despite her better reason.
Sir Reginald speedily discovered the state of his cousin's feelings. He had laid his plans for this result. Douglas Dale, as the adoring slave of Madame Durski, would be an easy dupe, and much of Sir Oswald's wealth might yet enrich his disinherited nephew. Victor Carrington looked on, and shared his spoils; but he watched Eversleigh's schemes with a half-contemptuous air.
"You think you are doing wonders, my dear Reginald," he said; "and certainly, by means of Mr. Dale's losses, you and I contrive to live—to say nothing of our dear Madame Durski, who comes in for her share of the plunder. But after all, what is it? a few hundreds more or less, at the best. I think you may by-and-by play a better and a deeper game than that, Reginald, and I think I can show you how to play it."
"I do not want to be mixed up in any more of your schemes," answered
Sir Reginald, "I have had enough of them. What have they done for me?"
The two men were seated in Sir Reginald's dingy sitting-room in
Villiers Street when this conversation took place.
They were sitting opposite to each other, with a little table between them. Victor Carrington rested his folded arms upon the table, and leaned across them, looking full in the face of his companion.
"Look you, Reginald Eversleigh," he said, "because I have failed once, there is no reason that I am to fail always. The devil himself conspired against me last time; but the day will come when I shall have the devil on my side. It is yet on the cards for you to become owner of ten thousand a-year; and it shall be my business to make you owner of that income."