This ejaculation, wrung from my heart, was the only answer I could make, before the young Creole had turned to the faro-table, and was placing his gold upon the cards.
I stood watching him with feelings of astonishment and admiration, mingled with anxiety for the result.
What small white hands! What a brilliant jewel, sparkling on his finger—a diamond! It has caught the eyes of the players, who gloat upon it as it passes back and forward to the cards. Chorley and Hatcher have both noticed it. I saw them exchange their peculiar glance as they did so. Both are polite to him. By the large bets he is laying he has won their esteem. Their attention in calling out the card when he wins, and in handing him his cheques, is marked and assiduous. He is the favoured better of the ring; and oh! how the eyes of those fair lemans gleam upon him with their wild and wicked meaning! Not one of them that would not love him for that sparkling gem!
I stood on one side watching with great anxiety—greater than if the stake had been my own. But it was my own. It was for me. The generous youth was playing away his gold for me.
My suspense was not likely to be of long duration. He was losing rapidly—recklessly losing. He had taken my place at the table, and along with it my ill-luck. Almost every bet he made was “raked” into the bank, until his last coin lay upon the cards. Another turn, and that, too, chinked as it fell into the cash-box of the croupier!
“Come now, D’Hauteville! Come away!” I whispered, leaning over, and laying hold of his arm.
“How much against this?” he asked the banker, without heeding me—“how much, sir?”
As he put the question, he raised the gold guard over his head, at the same time drawing forth his watch.
I suspected this was his intention when I first spoke. I repeated my request in a tone of entreaty—all in vain. He pressed Chorley for a reply.
The latter was not the man to waste words at such a crisis.