“Why, to the winners, old chappie,” said one. “The Marquis”—with a slight somewhat sarcastic emphasis on this title,—“will tell you all about it. Don’t worry!—he’ll settle it all for you.”
“I shall be most happy to be of any service to Mr. D’Arcy-Muir,” said the Marquis at once. “He has only to give me his note of hand that in ten days he will repay me, and the five hundred pounds is ready for him—even more, if he requires it.”
“Repay—five hundred pounds!” And Boy still stared about him in horror and fear. “But—I have not five hundred pence in all the world!”
The Marquis smiled again and stroked his moustache.
“No? That is certainly unfortunate! But your father, the Honourable Mr. D’Arcy-Muir, will no doubt be answerable for you. This is a debt of honour, of course—not a public matter—but involving serious private disgrace if left unpaid. However, don’t distress yourself, my dear boy! I will accept your note of hand at fourteen days instead of ten.”
Boy was silent—his face was deadly pale, his eyes bloodshot. Then he suddenly walked up to his smiling host and looked him full in the face.
“I understand!” he said hoarsely. “I begin to realize what you are!—and what kind of a trap I have fallen into! Very well! Let it be as you say. Pay these men what I owe to them—what you have made me lose to them, and I will give you my note of hand for the amount. And in fourteen days you shall be paid back—somehow!”
“Good!” And the Marquis went at once to a writing-desk conveniently at hand and scrawled a few lines hastily, which Boy as hastily glanced at and signed with his name and address,—“Thank you!” And the distinguished French nobleman shifted about a little, and avoided with some uneasiness the steady glance of the young man’s eyes. “Five hundred!—and I will charge you no interest for the loan! Will you play again?”
“Play again?” And Boy turned upon them all with such a tragedy of pain written on his face as for a moment awed even the callous gamesters, accustomed to ruin young men’s lives with as little compunction as they cracked their nuts after dinner. “No! Had I known better I would not have played at all.” With a sudden fierce movement he sprang towards the bewitching Lenore and seized her hands, while with a slight cry she tried to drag herself away from him. “You—you—betrayed me into this! You brought me here!—you, with your beautiful face and beautiful eyes—you whom I thought a good innocent girl! A good girl!” And he broke into a loud harsh laugh, like the laugh of a madman. “God help me! I thought you were good!”
He flung her hands from him with a gesture of loathing and contempt, and then, with one look of miserable defiance at the practised villains who, seated round the card-table, were smoking leisurely and smiling as though they were listening to a very amusing farce, turned and left the room.