He knew it too well. Those beautiful eyes, those red cheeks burned not for him. Not for him floated those light feet, nor rung that low laugh.
Yes, dance with him, flirt with him, that they could do, but not one of them would be his in earnest.
The poet went into the smoking-room to the old men, and sat down by one of the card-tables. He happened to throw himself down by the same table where the powerful master of Björne sat and played “baccarat” holding the bank with a great pile of silver in front of him.
The play was already high. Gösta gave it an even greater impulse. Green bank-notes appeared, and always the pile of money grew in front of the powerful Melchior Sinclair.
But before Gösta also gathered both coins and notes, and soon he was the only one who held out in the struggle against the great land-owner at Björne. Soon the great pile of money changed over from Melchior Sinclair to Gösta Berling.
“Gösta, my boy,” cried the land-owner, laughing, when he had played away everything he had in his pocket-book and purse, “what shall we do now? I am bankrupt, and I never play with borrowed money. I promised my wife that.”
He discovered a way. He played away his watch and his beaver coat, and was just going to stake his horse and sledge when Sintram checked him.
“Stake something to win on,” he advised him. “Stake something to turn the luck.”
“What the devil have I got?”
“Play your reddest heart’s blood, brother Melchior. Stake your daughter!”