“Furniss,” he said, “are you busy?”
Furniss looked up in perplexity.
“Suppose,” continued Butley, “that we throw a few hands of poker.”
Butley was right. With Furniss of Fitchly that was indeed an audacious suggestion to give, but, brooding on the circumstances of the last two months, in the minds of the Quoits Club it instantly assumed Homeric proportions. The turn of a card, the fall of a die, a woman’s honor—there was a romance about it that struck clear home to their devilishness; a veritable thrill went among them. Only Furniss was mystified; but, then, he was a devil, and naturally did not know how it felt to be devilish. But he saw light—his own light, a light that is not on land or sea, only in the waters under the earth.
“I’m on,” he said, and Butley dealt.
In a crowded club-room at five o’clock in the afternoon a two-handed game would ordinarily have been a monstrosity, but this was no ordinary contest. It was a fight to the very death, and without a word the spectators gathered at the only points where it is proper for spectators to gather in a poker-game—without a word and without a suggestion to join.
I want to do justice to that game, but the truth is that Butley did not win a single hand—or just one in the early part.
“I raise you four,” said Furniss as the clock struck six.
Butley glanced at his hand.
“It’s yours,” he said sadly, and regretfully laid down three jacks, while Furniss rapidly shuffled an ace high into the pack and looked at his watch.