“No. He will be dipped to the last pound before midnight. ’Tis Volney’s doing. He has angled for Montagu a se’nnight, and now he has hooked him. I have warned the lad, but——”
He shrugged his shoulders.
The Scotchman was right. I was past all caution now, past all restraint. The fever of play had gripped me, and I would listen to nothing but the rattle of that little box which makes the most seductive music ever sung by siren. My Lord Balmerino might stand behind me in silent protest till all was grey, and though he had been twenty times my father’s friend he would not move me a jot.
Volney’s smoldering eyes looked across the table at me.
“Your cast, Kenn. Shall we say doubles? You’ll nick this time for sure.”
“Done! Nine’s the main,” I cried, and threw deuces.
With that throw down crashed fifty ancestral oaks that had weathered the storms of three hundred winters. I had crabbed, not nicked.
“The fickle goddess is not with you to-day, Kenn. The jade jilts us all at times,” drawled Volney, as he raked in his winnings carelessly.
“Yet I have noted that there are those whom she forsakes not often, and I have wondered by what charmed talisman they hold her true,” flashed out Balmerino.
The steel flickered into Volney’s eyes. He understood it for no chance remark, but as an innuendo tossed forth as a challenge. Of all men Sir Robert Volney rode on the crest of fortune’s wave, and there were not lacking those who whispered that his invariable luck was due to something more than chance and honest skill. For me, I never believed the charge. With all his faults Volney had the sportsman’s love of fair play.