So he persisted in raising the stakes still higher. And he drank! He emptied the flask of Maraschino, and began upon the Kummel, and would have emptied that if his host's daughter had not, probably in a moment of abstraction, removed the case of liqueurs from the table. He was in the highest spirits, and lost as though losing were a pleasure. And mademoiselle leant over his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
But at last her father declared that play must cease.
"You have had bad fortune," he observed.
"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Mr Davison; his utterance was a little thick. "Extraordinary! Never had such bad fortune in my life before. It isn't fair to judge of a man's form from the play tonight? What do I owe you? A heap, I know."
"A trifle," M. de Fontanes looked through his tablets. "Three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs."
"Three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs! Why, that's a--that's a hundred and fifty pounds! Great snakes!"
The magnitude of the sum almost sobered him. M. de Fontanes smiled.
"You must try again for your revenge."
As before, the lady escorted the guest downstairs, "assisted" him would, on the present occasion, perhaps, have been the better word. The touch of her hand at parting increased his sense of intoxication. The cool air of the early morning did not tend to lessen it. He went staggering over the cobblestones. On the quay he encountered a solitary figure--the figure of a man who was strolling up and down and smoking a cigar. Mr Davison, with a burst of tipsy surprise, perceived that it was Mr Lintorn.
"Lintorn! I thought you were writing your letters."