The gamblers

by William Le Queux

How would Ernest act if he were aware of the actual truth? I wondered. Would he still have confidence in his pink-and-white doll?

Perhaps. Men are incomprehensible creatures where their love is concerned. When fascinated by a woman's smile, they will lick the hand that cuffs them; they will allow Aspasia to drench them with vin mousseux, to smother them with chiffons, to stifle them with mots, and to sell them for rouleaux, and yet make no audible complaint.

To love and to hate seem to be the two things which it is most natural and most easy for women to do. In these two principles how many of the actions of our lives originate. How important is it, therefore, that we should learn early in life to love and hate aright. Most women believe that they love virtue and hate vice. But have the majority of them clearly ascertained what virtue and vice are? Have they examined the meaning of these important words? Have they listened to the plausible reasoning of what we call Society, where things are spoken of by false names, and where vice is vulgar in the common herd, but sanctioned as chic among the select few? Or have they gone directly to the eternal and immutable principles of good and evil?

I must confess that, tutored by Ulrica, I had long ago listened to Society's reasonings, and had thus become a worldly woman. Now a worldly woman is necessarily a woman possessing tact, and able at the same time to tell untruths with grace, and successfully to act a part whenever necessary.

Woman is gifted by nature with a remarkable quickness of perception, by means of which she is able to detect the earliest approach of aught tending to destroy that high-toned purity of character for which, even in the days of chivalry, she was more reverenced and adored than for her beauty itself. This quickness of perception in minute and delicate points, with the power which woman also possesses of acting upon it instantaneously, has, in familiar phraseology, obtained the name of tact; and when this natural gift is added to good taste, the two combined are of more value to a woman in the social and domestic affairs of every-day life than the most brilliant and intellectual endowments could be without them.

You, my friend and confidante, know well that when a woman is possessed of a high degree of tact, she sees, as if by a kind of second sight, when any little emergency is likely to occur; or when, to use a more familiar expression, things do not seem likely to go right. She is thus aware of any sudden turn in conversation, and prepared for what it may lead to; but above all, she can penetrate into the state of mind of those with whom she is placed in contact, so as to detect the gathering gloom upon another's brow, before the mental storm shall have reached any formidable height; to know when the tone of voice has altered, when an unwelcome thought has presented itself, and when the pulse of feeling is beating higher or lower in consequence of some apparently trifling circumstance which has just come to pass.

Most women flatter themselves upon this valuable acquirement, and the scandal-monger most of all. In the life of every woman there have been critical moments, when this natural intuition has led her into a knowledge of the truth. During the days when I was acting as a spy, my quickness of perception was put to the test times without number, and again there, in the Casino of Enghien-les-Bains, I was compelled to exercise all my woman's cunning.

The man who had just joined the fair lounger beneath the tree was, I judged, much beneath middle height, but in the darkness height is always deceptive. All I could see distinctly was that he wore a black overcoat, a black tie, and either white or lavender gloves. Evidently he was of that type of male elegant commonly to be seen in the neighbourhood of public gaming-tables. Men of this type are usually hard-up, live by sponging on friends, affect a rather select circle, and are the leaders of masculine fashion. The Italians call a man belonging to this class a duca senza ducati.

He was leaning his elbows upon the table, and had entered into an earnest conversation. Both heads were bent together, and he was apparently relating some facts which were, to her, of the utmost interest, for now and then she shrugged her narrow shoulders, and gesticulated with not a little vivacity. I was, however, too far off to overhear a single syllable of the conversation.

The man, I saw, had taken from his pocket some letters, one of which she held in her hand, bending forward into the light so as to read it. What she read apparently angered her, for she tossed it back to him in disgust, and struck her hand upon the table with a quick ejaculation. This caused some words between them. I imagined that, in her outburst of temper, she had made some charge against him which he now stoutly denied, for of a sudden both were gesticulating violently. As most of the promenaders had entered the theatre, the garden was at that moment practically deserted; but the orchestra in the illuminated bandstand was playing, drowning all their words, and preventing attention being directed to their altercation.