ALL this time Ina Klosking was rehearsing at the theater, quite
unconscious of the impending visit. A royal personage had commanded “Il
Barbiere,” the part of Rosina to be restored to the original key. It was
written for a contralto, but transposed by the influence of Grisi.
Having no performance that night, they began to rehearse rather later
than usual, and did not leave off till a quarter to four o'clock. Ina,
who suffered a good deal at rehearsals from the inaccuracy and apathy of
the people, went home fagged, and with her throat parched--so does a bad
rehearsal affect all good and earnest artists.
She ordered a cutlet, with potato chips, and lay down on the sofa. While
she was reposing, came Joseph Ashmead, to cheer her, with good
photographs of her, taken the day before. She smiled gratefully at his
zeal. He also reminded her that he had orders to take her to the Kursaal:
he said the tables would be well filled from five o'clock till quite
late, there being no other entertainment on foot that evening.
Ina thanked him, and said she would not miss going on any account; but
she was rather fatigued and faint.
“Oh, I'll wait for you as long as you like,” said Ashmead, kindly.
“No, my good comrade,” said Ina. “I will ask you to go to the manager and
get me a little money, and then to the Kursaal and secure me a place at
the table in the largest room. There I will join you. If _he_ is not
there--and I am not so mad as to think he will be there--I shall risk a
few pieces myself, to be nearer him in mind.”
This amazed Ashmead; it was so unlike her. “You are joking,” said he.
“Why, if you lose five napoleons at play, it will be your death; you will
grizzle so.”
“Yes; but I shall not lose. I am too unlucky in love to lose at cards. I
mean to play this afternoon; and never again in all my life. Sir, I am
resolved.”
“Oh, if you are resolved, there is no more to be said. I won't run my
head against a brick wall.”
Ina, being half a foreigner, thought this rather brusk. She looked at him
askant, and said, quietly, “Others, besides me, can be stubborn, and get
their own way, while speaking the language of submission. Not I invented
volition.”
With this flea in his ear, the faithful Joseph went off, chuckling, and
obtained an advance from the manager, and then proceeded to the principal
gaming-table, and, after waiting some time, secured a chair, which he
kept for his chief.
An hour went by; an hour and a half. He was obliged, for very shame, to
bet. This he did, five francs at a time; and his risk was so small, and
his luck so even, that by degrees he was drawn into conversation with his
neighbor, a young swell, who was watching the run of the colors, and
betting in silver, and pricking a card, preparatory to going in for a
great _coup._ Meantime he favored Mr. Ashmead with his theory of chances,
and Ashmead listened very politely to every word; because he was rather
proud of the other's notice: he was so handsome, well dressed, and well
spoken.
Meantime Ina Klosking snatched a few minutes' sleep, as most artists can
in the afternoon, and was awakened by the servant bringing in her frugal
repast, a cutlet and a pint of Bordeaux.
On her plate he brought her a large card, on which was printed “Miss Zoe
Vizard.” This led to inquiries, and he told her a lady of superlative
beauty had called and left that card. Ina asked for a description.
“Ah, madame,” said Karl, “do not expect details from me. I was too
dazzled, and struck by lightning, to make an inventory of her charms.”
“At least you can tell me was she dark or fair.”
“Madame, she was dark as night; but glorious as the sun. Her earthly
abode is the Russie, at Frankfort; blest hotel!”
“Did she tell you so?”
“Indirectly. She wrote on the card with the smallest pencil I have
hitherto witnessed: the letters are faint, the pencil being inferior to
the case, which was golden. Nevertheless, as one is naturally curious to
learn whence a bright vision has emerged, I permitted myself to
decipher.”
“Your curiosity was natural,” said Ina, dryly. “I will detain you with no
more questions.”
She put the card carefully away, and eat her modest repast. Then she made
her afternoon toilet, and walked, slowly and pensively, to the Kursaal.
Nothing there was new to her, except to be going to the table without the
man on whom it was her misfortune to have wasted her heart of gold.
I think, therefore, it would be better for me to enter the place in
company with our novices; and, indeed, we must, or we shall derange the
true order of time and sequence of incidents; for, please observe, all
the English ladies of our story met at the Kursaal while Ina was reposing
on her sofa.
The first-comers were Zoe and Harrington. They entered the noble hall,
inscribed their names, and, by that simple ceremony, were members of a
club, compared with which the greatest clubs in London are petty things:
a club with spacious dining-rooms, ball-rooms, concert-rooms,
gambling-rooms, theater, and delicious gardens. The building, that
combined so many rich treats, was colossal in size, and glorious with
rich colors and gold laid on with Oriental profusion, and sometimes with
Oriental taste.
Harrington took his sister through the drawing-rooms first; and she
admired the unusual loftiness of the rooms, the blaze of white and gold,
and of _ce'ladon_ and gold, and the great Russian lusters, and the mighty
mirrors. But when they got to the dining-room she was enchanted. That
lofty and magnificent _salon,_ with its daring mixture of red and black,
and green and blue, all melted into harmony by the rivers of gold that
ran boldly among them, went to her very heart. A Greek is half an
Oriental; and Zoe had what may be called the courage of color.
“Glorious!” she cried, and clasped her hands. “And see! what a background
to the emerald grass outside and the ruby flowers. They seem to come into
the room through those monster windows.”
“Splendid!” said Harrington, to whom all this was literally Greek. “I'm
so excited, I'll order dinner.”
“Dinner!” said Zoe, disdainfully; and sat down and eyed the Moresque
walls around her, and the beauties of nature outside, and brought them
together in one picture.
Harrington was a long time in conclave with M. Chevet. Then Zoe became
impatient.
“Oh, do leave off ordering dinner,” said she, “and take me out to that
other paradise.”
The Chevet shrugged his shoulders with pity. Vizard shrugged his too, to
soothe him; and, after a few more hurried words, took the lover of color
into the garden. It was delicious, with green slopes, and rich foliage,
and flowers, and enlivened by bright silk dresses, sparkling fitfully
among the green leaves, or flaming out boldly in the sun; and, as luck
would have it, before Zoe had taken ten steps upon the greensward, the
band of fifty musicians struck up, and played as fifty men rarely play
together out of Germany.
Zoe was enchanted. She walked on air, and beamed as bright as any flower
in the place.
After her first ejaculation at the sudden music, she did not speak for a
good while; her content was so great. At last she said, “And do they
leave this paradise to gamble in a room?”
“Leave it? They shun it. The gamblers despise the flowers.”
“How perverse people are! Excitement! Who wants any more than this?”
“Zoe,” said Vizard, “innocent excitement can never compete with vicious.”
“What, is it really wicked to play?”
“I don't know about wicked; you girls always run to the biggest word.
But, if avarice is a vice, gambling cannot be virtuous; for the root of
gambling is mere avarice, weak avarice. Come, my young friend, _as we're
quite alone,_ I'll drop Thersites, and talk sense to you, for once.
Child, there are two roads to wealth; one is by the way of industry,
skill, vigilance, and self-denial; and these are virtues, though
sometimes they go with tricks of trade, hardness of heart, and taking
advantage of misfortune, to buy cheap and sell dear. The other road to
wealth is by bold speculation, with risk of proportionate loss; in short,
by gambling with cards, or without them. Now, look into the mind of the
gambler--he wants to make money, contrary to nature, and unjustly. He
wants to be rewarded without merit, to make a fortune in a moment, and
without industry, vigilance, true skill, or self-denial. 'A penny saved
is a penny gained' does not enter his creed. Strip the thing of its
disguise, it is avarice, sordid avarice; and I call it weak avarice,
because the gambler relies on chance alone, yet accepts uneven chances,
and hopes that Fortune will be as much in love with him as he is with
himself. What silly egotism! You admire the Kursaal, and you are right;
then do just ask yourself why is there nothing to pay for so many
expensive enjoyments: and very little to pay for concerts and balls; low
prices at the opera, which never pays its own expenses; even Chevet's
dinners are reasonable, if you avoid his sham Johannisberg. All these
cheap delights, the gold, the colors, the garden, the music, the lights,
are paid for by the losses of feeble-minded Avarice. But, there--I said
all this to Ned Severne, and I might as well have preached sense to the
wind.”
“Harrington, I will not play. I am much happier walking with my good
brother--”
“Faute de mieux.”
Zoe blushed, but would not hear--“And it is so good of you to make a
friend of me, and talk sense. Oh! see--a lady with two blues! Come and
look at her.”
Before they had taken five steps, Zoe stopped short and said, “It is
Fanny Dover, I declare. She has not seen us yet. She is short-sighted.
Come here.” And the impetuous maid dragged him off behind a tuft of
foliage.
When she had got him there she said hotly that it was too bad.
“Oh, is it?” said he, very calmly. “What?”
“Why, don't you see what she has done? You, so sensible, to be so slow
about women's ways; and you are always pretending to know them. Why, she
has gone and bought that costume with the money you gave her to play
with.”
“Sensible girl!”
“Dishonest girl, _I_ call her.”
“There you go to your big words. No, no. A little money was given her for
a bad purpose. She has used it for a frivolous one. That is 'a step in
the right direction'--jargon of the day.”
“But to receive money for one purpose, and apply it to another, is--what
do you call it--_chose?--de'tournement des fonds_--what is the English
word? I've been abroad till I've forgotten English. Oh, I
know--embezzlement.”
“Well, that is a big word for a small transaction; you have not dug in
the mine of the vernacular for nothing.”
“Harrington, if you don't mind, I do; so please come. I'll talk to her.”
“Stop a moment,” said Vizard, very gravely. “You will not say one word to
her.”
“And why not, pray?”
“Because it would be unworthy of us, and cruel to her; barbarously cruel.
What! call her to account before that old woman and me?”
“Why not? She is flaunting her blues before you two, and plenty more.”
“Feminine logic, Zoe. The point is this--she is poor. You must know that.
This comes of poverty and love of dress; not of dishonesty and love of
dress; and just ask yourself, is there a creature that ought to be pitied
more and handled more delicately than a _poor lady?_ Why, you would make
her writhe with shame and distress! Well, I do think there is not a
single wild animal so cruel to another wild animal as a woman is to a
woman. You are cruel to one another by instinct. But I appeal to your
reason--if you have any.”
Zoe's eyes filled. “You are right,” said she, humbly. “Thank you for
thinking for me. I will not say a word to her before _you.”_
“That is a good girl. But, come now, why say a word at all?”
“Oh, it is no use your demanding impossibilities, dear. I could no more
help speaking to her than I could fly; and don't go fancying she will
care a pin what I say, if I don't say it before _a gentleman.”_
Having given him this piece of information, she left her ambush, and
proceeded to meet the all-unconscious blue girl; but, even as they went,
Vizard returned to his normal condition, and doled out, rather
indolently, that they were out on pleasure, and might possibly miss the
object of the excursion if they were to encourage a habit of getting into
rages about nothing.
Zoe was better than her word. She met Fanny with open admiration: to be
sure, she knew that apathy, or even tranquillity, on first meeting the
blues, would be instantly set down to envy.
“And where did you get it, dear?”
“At quite a small shop.”
“French?”
“Oh, no; I think she was an Austrian. This is not a French mixture: loud,
discordant colors, that is the French taste.”
“Here is heresy,” said Vizard. “Why, I thought the French beat the world
in dress.”
“Yes, dear,” said Zoe, “in form and pattern. But Fanny is right; they
make mistakes in color. They are terribly afraid of scarlet; but they are
afraid of nothing else: and many of their mixtures are as discordant to
the eye as Wagner's music to the ear. Now, after all, scarlet is the king
of colors; and there is no harm in King Scarlet, if you treat him with
respect and put a modest subject next to him.”
“Gypsy locks, for instance,” suggested Fanny, slyly.
Miss Maitland owned herself puzzled. “In my day,” said she, “no one ever
thought of putting blue upon blue; but really, somehow, it looks well.”
“May I tell you why, aunt?--because the dress-maker had a real eye, and
has chosen the right tints of blue. It is all nonsense about one color
not going with another. Nature defies that; and how? by choosing the very
tints of each color that will go together. The sweetest room I ever saw
was painted by a great artist; and, do you know, he had colored the
ceiling blue and the walls green: and I assure you the effect was
heavenly: but, then, he had chosen the exact tints of green and blue that
would go together. The draperies were between crimson and maroon. But
there's another thing in Fanny's dress; it is velvet. Now, blue velvet is
blue to the mind; but it is not blue to the eye. You try and paint blue
velvet; you will be surprised how much white you must lay on. The high
lights of all velvets are white. This white helps to blend the two tints
of blue.”
“This is very instructive,” said Vizard. “I was not aware I had a sister,
youthful, but profound. Let us go in and dine.”
Fanny demurred. She said she believed Miss Maitland wished to take one
turn round the grounds first.
Miss Maitland stared, but assented in a mechanical way; and they
commenced their promenade.
Zoe hung back and beckoned her brother. “Miss Maitland!” said she, with
such an air. _“She_ wants to show her blues to all the world and his
wife.”
“Very natural,” said Vizard. “So would you, if you were in a scarlet
gown, with a crimson cloak.”
Zoe laughed heartily at this, and forgave Fanny her new dress: but she
had a worse bone than that to pick with her.
It was a short but agreeable promenade to Zoe, for now they were alone,
her brother, instead of sneering, complimented her.
“Never you mind my impertinence,” said he; “the truth is, I am proud of
you. You are an observer.”
“Me? Oh--in color.”
“Never mind: an observer is an observer; and genuine observation is not
so common. Men see and hear with their prejudices and not their senses.
Now we are going to those gaming-tables. At first, of course, you will
play; but, as soon as ever you are cleaned out, observe! Let nothing
escape that woman's eye of yours: and so we'll get something for our
money.”
“Harrington,” said the girl proudly, “I will be all eye and ear.”
Soon after this they went in to dinner. Zoe cast her eyes round for
Severne, and was manifestly disappointed at his not meeting them even
there.
As for Fanny, she had attracted wonderful attention in the garden, and
was elated; her conscience did not prick her in the least, for such a
trifle as _de'tournement des fonds;_ and public admiration did not
improve her: she was sprightly and talkative as usual; but now she was
also a trifle brazen, and pert all round.
And so the dinner passed, and they proceeded to the gaming-tables.
Miss Maitland and Zoe led. Fanny and Harrington followed: for Miss Dover,
elated by the blues--though, by-the-by, one hears of them as
depressing--and encouraged by admiration and Chevet's violet-perfumed St.
Peray, took Harrington's arm, really as if it belonged to her.
They went into the library first, and, after a careless inspection, came
to the great attraction of the place. They entered one of the
gambling-rooms.
The first impression was disappointing. There were two very long tables,
rounded off at the ends: one for _trente et quarante_ and one for
_roulette._ At each table were seated a number of persons, and others
standing behind them. Among the persons seated was the dealer, or, in
roulette, the spinner. This official sat in the center, flanked on each
side by croupiers with rakes; but at each end of the table there was also
a croupier with his rake.
The rest were players or lookers-on; most of whom, by well-known
gradations of curiosity and weakness, to describe which minutely would be
to write a little comedy that others have already written, were drawn
into playing at last. So fidgets the moth about the candle before he
makes up what, no doubt, the poor little soul calls his mind.
Our little party stopped first at _trente et quarante,_ and Zoe commenced
her observations. Instead of the wild excitement she had heard of, there
was a subdued air, a forced quiet, especially among the seated players. A
stern etiquette presided, and the gamblers shrouded themselves in
well-bred stoicism--losing without open distress or ire, winning without
open exultation. The old hands, especially, began play with a padlock on
the tongue and a mask upon the face. There are masks, however, that do
not hide the eye; and Miss Vizard caught some flashes that escaped the
masks even then at the commencement of the play. Still, external stoicism
prevailed, on the whole, and had a fixed example in the _tailleur_ and
the croupiers. Playing many hours every day in the year but Good-Friday,
and always with other people's money, these men had parted with passion,
and almost with sensation; they had become skillful automata, chanting a
stave, and raking up or scattering hay-cocks of gold, which to them were
counters.
It was with the monotonous voice of an automaton they intoned:
“Faites le jeu, messieu, messieu.”
Then, after a pause of ten seconds:
“Le jeu est fait, messieu.”
Then, after two seconds:
“Rien ne va plus.”
Then mumble--mumble--mumble.
Then, “La' Rouge perd et couleur,” or whatever might be the result.
Then the croupiers first raked in the players' losses with vast
expedition; next, the croupiers in charge of the funds chucked the
precise amount of the winnings on to each stake with unerring dexterity
and the indifference of machines; and the chant recommenced, “Faites le
jeu, messieu.”
Pause, ten seconds.
“Le jeu est fait, messieu.”
Pause, two seconds.
“Rien ne va plus.”
The _tailleur_ dealt, and the croupier intoned, “La'! Rouge gagne et
couleur perd:” the mechanical raking and dexterous chucking followed.
This, with a low buzzing, and the deadened jingle of gold upon green
cloth, and the light grating of the croupiers' rakes, was the first
impression upon Zoe's senses; but the mere game did not monopolize her
attention many seconds. There were other things better worth noting: the
great varieties of human type that a single passion had brought together
in a small German town. Her ear was regaled with such a polyglot murmur
as she had read of in Genesis, but had never witnessed before.
Here were the sharp Tuscan and the mellow Roman; the sibilation of
England, the brogue of Ireland, the shibboleth of the Minories, the twang
of certain American States, the guttural expectoration of Germany, the
nasal emphasis of France, and even the modulated Hindoostanee, and the
sonorous Spanish, all mingling.
The types of face were as various as the tongues.
Here were the green-eyed Tartar, the black-eyed Italian, and the
gray-eyed Saxon; faces all cheek-bones, and faces no cheek-bones; the red
Arabian, the fair Dane, and the dark Hindoo.
Her woman's eye seized another phenomenon--the hands. Not nations only,
but varieties of the animal kingdom were represented. Here were the white
hands of fair women, and the red paws of obese shop-keepers, and the
yellow, bird-like claws of old withered gamesters, all stretched out,
side by side, in strange contrast, to place the stakes or scratch in the
winnings; and often the winners put their palms or paws on their heap of
gold, just as a dog does on a bone when other dogs are nigh.
But what Zoe's eye rested on longest were the costume and deportment of
the ladies. A few were in good taste; others aimed at a greater variety
of beautiful colors than the fair have, up to this date, succeeded in
combining, without inflicting more pain on the beholders than a
beneficent Creator--so far as we can judge by his own system of
color--intended the cultivated eye to suffer. Example--as the old writers
used to say--one lady fired the air in primrose satin, with red-velvet
trimming. This mild mixture re-appeared on her head in a primrose hat
with a red feather. A gold chain, so big that it would have done for a
felon instead of a fool, encircled her neck, and was weighted with
innumerable lockets, which in size and inventive taste resembled a
poached egg, and betrayed the insular goldsmith. A train three yards long
completed this gorgeous figure. She had commenced life a shrimp-girl, and
pushed a dredge before her, instead of pulling a silken besom after her.
Another stately queen (with an “a”) heated the atmosphere with a burnous
of that color the French call _flamme d'enfer,_ and cooled it with a
green bonnet. A third appeared to have been struck with the beauty of a
painter's palette, and the skill with which its colors mix before the
brush spoils them. Green body, violet skirts, rose-colored trimmings,
purple sleeves, light green boots, lavender gloves. A shawl all gauze and
gold, flounced like a petticoat; a bonnet so small, and red feather so
enormous and all-predominant, that a peacock seemed to be sitting on a
hedge sparrow's nest.
Zoe suspected these polychromatic ladies at a glance, and observed their
manners, in a mistrustful spirit, carefully. She was little surprised,
though a good deal shocked, to find that some of them seemed familiar,
and almost jocular, with the croupiers; and that, although they did not
talk loud, being kept in order by the general etiquette, they rustled and
fidgeted and played in a devil-may-care sort of manner. This was in great
measure accounted for by the circumstance that they were losing other
people's money: at all events, they often turned their heads over their
shoulders, and applied for fresh funds to their male companions.
Zoe blushed at all this, and said to Vizard, “I should like to see the
other rooms.” She whispered to Miss Maitland, “Surely they are not very
select in this one.”
“Lead on,” said Vizard; “that is the way.”
Fanny had not parted with his arm all this time. As they followed the
others, he said, “But she will find it is all the same thing.”
Fanny laughed in his face. “Don't you _see?_ C'est la chasse au Severne
qui commence.”
“En voil'a un se'v'ere,” replied he.
She was mute. She had not learned that sort of French in her
finishing-school. I forgive it.
The next room was the same thing over again.
Zoe stood a moment and drank everything in, then turned to Vizard,
blushed, and said, “May we play a little now?”
“Why, of course.”
“Fanny!”
“No; you begin, dear. We will stand by and wish you success.”
“You are a coward,” said Zoe, loftily; and went to the table with more
changes of color than veteran lancers betray in charging infantry. It was
the _roulette_ table she chose. That seems a law of her sex. The true
solution is not so profound as some that have been offered. It is this:
_trente et quarante_ is not only unintelligible, but uninteresting. At
_roulette_ there is a pictorial object and dramatic incident; the board,
the turning of the _moulinet,_ and the swift revolutions of an ivory
ball, its lowered speed, its irregular bounds, and its final settlement
in one of the many holes, numbered and colored. Here the female
understanding sees something it can grasp, and, above all, the female eye
catches something pictorial and amusing outside the loss or gain; and so
she goes, by her nature, to _roulette,_ which is a greater swindle than
the other.
Zoe staked five pounds on No. 21, for an excellent reason; she was in her
twenty-first year. The ball was so illogical as to go into No. 3, and she
lost. She stood by her number and lost again. She lost thirteen times in
succession.
The fourteenth time the ball rolled into 21, and the croupier handed her
thirty-five times her stake, and a lot more for color.
Her eye flashed, and her cheek flushed, and I suppose she was tempted to
bet more heavily, for she said, “No. That will never happen to me again,
I know;” and she rose, the richer by several napoleons, and said, “Now
let us go to another.”
“Humph!” said Vizard. “What an extraordinary girl! She will give the
devil more trouble than most of you. Here's precocious prudence.”
Fanny laughed in his face. “C'est la chasse qui recommence,” said she.
I ought to explain that when she was in England she did not interlard her
discourse with French scraps. She was not so ill-bred. But abroad she had
got into a way of it, through being often compelled to speak French.
Vizard appreciated the sagacity of the remark, but he did not like the
lady any the better for it. He meditated in silence. He remembered that,
when they were in the garden. Zoe had hung behind, and interpreted Fanny
ill-naturedly; and here was Fanny at the same game, literally backbiting,
or back-nibbling, at all events. Said he to himself, “And these two are
friends! female friends.” And he nursed his misogyny in silence.
They came into a very noble room, the largest of all, with enormous
mirrors down to the ground, and a ceiling blazing with gold, and the air
glittering with lusters. Two very large tables, and a distinguished
company at each, especially at the _trente et quarante._
Before our little party had taken six steps into the room, Zoe stood like
a pointer; and Fanny backed.
Should these terms seem disrespectful, let Fanny bear the blame. It is
her application of the word “chasse” that drew down the simile.
Yes, there sat Ned Severne, talking familiarly to Joseph Ashmead, and
preparing to “put the pot on,” as he called it.
Now Zoe was so far gone that the very sight of Severne was a balsam to
her. She had a little bone to pick with him; and when he was out of
sight, the bone seemed pretty large. But when she saw his adorable face,
unconscious, as it seemed, of wrong, the bone faded and the face shone.
Her own face cleared at the sight of him: she turned back to Fanny and
Vizard, arch and smiling, and put her finger to her mouth, as much as to
say, “Let us have some fun. We have caught our truant: let us watch him,
unseen, a little, before we burst on him.”
Vizard enjoyed this, and encouraged her with a nod.
The consequence was that Zoe dropped Miss Maitland's arm, who took that
opportunity to turn up her nose, and began to creep up like a young cat
after a bird; taking a step, and then pausing; then another step, and a
long pause; and still with her eye fixed on Severne. He did not see her,
nor her companions, partly because they were not in front of him, but
approaching at a sharp angle, and also because he was just then beginning
to bet heavily on his system. By this means, two progressive events went
on contemporaneously: the arch but cat-like advance of Zoe, with pauses,
and the betting of Severne, in which he gave himself the benefit of his
system.
_Noir_ having been the last to win, he went against the alternation and
put fifty pounds on _noir._ Red won. Then, true to his system, he doubled
on the winning color. One hundred pounds on red. Black won. He doubled on
black, and red won; and there were four hundred pounds of his five
hundred gone in five minutes.
On this proof that the likeliest thing to happen--viz., alternation of
the color--does _sometime_ happen, Severne lost heart.
He turned to Ashmead, with all the superstition of a gambler, “For God's
sake, bet for me!” said he. He clutched his own hair convulsively, in a
struggle with his mania, and prevailed so far as to thrust fifty pounds
into his own pocket, to live on, and gave Ashmead five tens.
“Well, but,” said Ashmead, “you must tell me what to do.”
“No, no. Bet your own way, for me.” He had hardly uttered these words,
when he seemed to glare across the table at the great mirror, and,
suddenly putting his handkerchief to his mouth, he made a bolt sidewise,
plunged amid the bystanders, and emerged only to dash into a room at the
side.
As he disappeared, a lady came slowly and pensively forward from the
outer door; lifted her eyes as she neared the table, saw a vacant chair,
and glided into it, revealing to Zoe Vizard and her party a noble face,
not so splendid and animated as on the stage, for its expression was
slumbering; still it was the face of Ina Klosking.
No transformation trick was ever done more neatly and smoothly than this,
in which, nevertheless, the performers acted without concert.
Severne fled out, and the Klosking came slowly in; yet no one had time to
take the seat, she glided into it so soon after Severne had vacated it.
Zoe Vizard and her friends stared after the flying Severne, then stared
at the newcomer, and then turned round and stared at each other, in
mutual amazement and inquiry.
What was the meaning of this double incident, that resembled a conjurer's
trick? Having looked at her companions, and seen only her own surprise
reflected, Zoe Vizard fixed her eyes, like burning-glasses, upon Ina
Klosking.
Then that lady thickened the mystery. She seemed very familiar with the
man Severne had been so familiar with.
That man contributed his share to the multiplying mystery. He had a muddy
complexion, hair the color of dirt, a long nose, a hatchet face, mean
little eyes, and was evidently not a gentleman. He wore a brown velveteen
shooting-coat, with a magenta tie that gave Zoe a pain in the eye. She
had already felt sorry to see her Severne was acquainted with such a man.
He seemed to her the _ne plus ultra_ of vulgarity; and now, behold, the
artist, the woman she had so admired, was equally familiar with the same
objectionable person.
To appreciate the hopeless puzzle of Zoe Vizard, the reader must be on
his guard against his own knowledge. He knows that Severne and Ashmead
were two Bohemians, who had struck up acquaintance, all in a minute, that
very evening. But Zoe had not this knowledge, and she could not possibly
divine it. The whole thing was presented to her senses thus: a vulgar
man, with a brown velveteen shooting-coat and a red-hot tie was a mutual
friend of the gentlemanly Severne and the dignified Klosking. Severne
left the mutual friend; Mademoiselle Klosking joined the mutual friend;
and there she sat, where Severne had sat a moment ago, by the side of
their mutual friend.
All manner of thoughts and surmises thronged upon Zoe Vizard; but each
way of accounting for the mystery contradicted some plain fact or other;
so she was driven at last to a woman's remedy. She would wait, and watch.
Severne would probably come back, and somehow furnish the key. Meantime
her eye was not likely to leave the Klosking, nor her ear to miss a
syllable the Klosking might utter.
She whispered to Vizard, in a very peculiar tone, “I will play at this
table,” and stepped up to it, with the word.
The duration of such beauty as Zoe's is proverbially limited; but the
limit to its power, while it does last, has not yet been discovered. It
is a fact that, as soon as she came close to the table two male gamblers
looked up, saw her, wondered at her, and actually jumped up and offered
their seats: she made a courteous inclination of the head, and installed
Miss Maitland in one seat, without reserve. She put a little gold on the
table, and asked Miss Maitland, in a whisper, to play for her. She
herself had neither eye nor ear except for Ina Klosking. That lady was
having a discussion, _sotto voce,_ with Ashmead; and if she had been one
of your mumblers whose name is legion, even Zoe's swift ear could have
caught little or nothing. But when a voice has volume, and the great
habit of articulation has been brought to perfection, the words travel
surprisingly.
Zoe heard the lady say to Ashmead, scarcely above her breath, “Well, but
if he requested you to bet for him, how can he blame you?”
Zoe could not catch Ashmead's reply, but it was accompanied by a shake of
the head; so she understood him to object.
Then, after a little more discussion, Ina Klosking said, “What money have
you of mine?”
Ashmead produced some notes.
“Very well,” said the Klosking. “Now, I shall take my twenty-five pounds,
and twenty-five pounds of his, and play. When he returns, we shall, at
all events, have twenty-five pounds safe for him. I take the
responsibility.”
“Oh,” thought Zoe; “then he _is_ coming back. Ah, I shall see what all
this means.” She felt sick at heart.
Zoe Vizard was on the other side, but not opposite Mademoiselle Klosking;
she was considerably to the right hand; and as the new-comer was much
occupied, just at first, with Ashmead, who sat on her left, Zoe had time
to dissect her, which she did without mercy. Well, her costume was
beautifully made, and fitted on a symmetrical figure; but as to color, it
was neutral--a warm French gray, and neither courted admiration nor
risked censure: it was unpretending. Her lace collar was valuable, but
not striking. Her hair was beautiful, both in gloss and color, and
beautifully, but neatly, arranged. Her gloves and wristbands were
perfect.
As every woman aims at appearance, openly or secretly, and every other
woman knows she does, Zoe did not look at this meek dress with male
simplicity, unsuspicious of design, but asked herself what was the
leading motive; and the question was no sooner asked than answered. “She
has dressed for her golden hair and her white throat. Her hair, her deep
gray eyes, and her skin, are just like a flower: she has dressed herself
as the modest stalk. She is an artist.”
At the same table were a Russian princess, an English countess, and a
Bavarian duchess--all well dressed, upon the whole. But their dresses
showed off their dresses; the Klosking's showed off herself. And there
was a native dignity, and, above all, a wonderful seemliness, about the
Klosking that inspired respect. Dress and deportment were all of a
piece--decent and deep.
While Zoe was picking her to pieces, Ina, having settled matters with
Ashmead, looked up, and, of course, took in every other woman who was in
sight at a single sweep. She recognized Zoe directly, with a flush of
pleasure; a sweet, bright expression broke over her face, and she bowed
to her with a respectful cordiality that was captivating.
Zoe yielded to the charm of manner, and bowed and smiled in return,
though, till that moment, she had been knitting her black brows at her in
wonder and vague suspicion.
Ina trifled with the game, at first. Ashmead was still talking to her of
the young swell and his system. He explained it to her, and how it had
failed. “Not but what,” said he, “there is a great deal in it most
evenings. But to-day there are no runs; it is all turn and turn about. If
it would rain, now, you would see a change.”
“Well,” said Ina, “I will bet a few pounds on red, then on black, till
these runs begin.”
During the above conversation, of which Zoe caught little, because
Ashmead was the chief speaker, she cast her eyes all round the table and
saw a curious assemblage of figures.
There was a solemn Turk melting his piasters with admirable gravity;
there was the Russian princess; and there was a lady, dressed in loud,
incongruous colors, such as once drew from a horrified modiste the cry,
“Ah, Dieu! quelle immoralite'!” and that's a fact. There was a Popish
priest, looking sheepish as he staked his silver, and an Anglican rector,
betting flyers, and as _nonchalant,_ in the blest absence of his flock
and the Baptist minister, as if he were playing at whist with the old
Bishop of Norwich, who played a nightly rubber in my father's day--and a
very bad one. There was a French count, nearly six feet high, to whom the
word “old” would have been unjust: he was antique, and had turned into
bones and leather; but the hair on that dilapidated trunk was its own;
and Zoe preferred him much to the lusty old English beau beside him, with
ivory teeth and ebon locks that cost a pretty penny.
There was a fat, livid Neapolitan betting heavily; there was a creole
lady, with a fine oval face, rather sallow, and eyes and hair as black as
Zoe's own. Indeed, the creole excelled her, by the addition of a little
black fringe upon her upper lip that, prejudice apart, became her very
well. Her front hair was confined by two gold threads a little way apart,
on which were fixed a singular ornament, the vivid eyes of a peacock's
tail set close together all round. It was glorious, regal. The hussy
should have been the Queen of Sheba, receiving Solomon, and showing her
peacock's eyes against his crown-jewels. Like the lilies of the field,
these products of nature are bad to beat, as we say on Yorkshire turf.
Indeed that frontlet was so beautiful and well placed, it drew forth
glances of marked disdain from every lady within sight of it, Zoe
excepted. She was placable. This was a lesson in color; and she managed
to forgive the teacher, in consideration of the lesson.
Amid the gaudier birds, there was a dove--a young lady, well dressed,
with Quaker-like simplicity, in gray silk dress with no trimmings, a
white silk bonnet and veil. Her face was full of virtues. Meeting her
elsewhere, you would say “That is a good wife, a good daughter, and the
making of a good mother.” Her expression at the table was thoughtful and
a little anxious; but every now and then she turned her head to look for
her husband, and gave him so sweet a smile of conjugal sympathy and
affection as made Zoe almost pray they might win. The husband was an
officer, a veteran, with grizzled hair and mustache, a colonel who had
commanded a brigade in action, but could only love and spoil his wife. He
ought to have been her father, her friend, her commander, and marched her
out of that “curse-all” to the top of Cader Idris, if need was. Instead
of that, he stood behind her chair like her lackey all day: for his dove
was as desperate a gambler as any in Europe. It was not that she bet very
heavily, but that she bet every day and all day. She began in the
afternoon, and played till midnight if there was a table going. She knew
no day of religion--no day of rest. She won, and she lost: her own
fortune and her husband's stood the money drain; but how about the golden
hours? She was losing her youth and wasting her soul. Yet the
administration gave her a warning; they did not allow the irretrievable
hours to be stolen from her with a noiseless hand. At All Souls' College,
Oxford, in the first quadrangle, grave, thoughtful men raised to the top
story, two hundred years ago, a grand sundial, the largest, perhaps, and
noblest in the kingdom. They set it on the face of the Quad, and wrote
over the long pointer in large letters of gold, these words, “Pereunt et
imputantur,” which refer to the hours indicated below, and mean
literally, “They perish, and go down to our account;” but really imply a
little more, viz., that “they are wasted, and go to our debit.” These are
true words and big words--bigger than any royal commissioner has uttered
up to date--and reach the mind through the senses, and have warned the
scholars of many a generation not to throw away the seed-time of their
youth, which never can come twice to any man. Well, the administration of
the Kursaal conveyed to that lost English dove and others a note of
warning which struck the senses, as does the immortal warning emblazoned
on the fair brow of that beautiful college; only, in the Kursaal the
warning struck the ear, not the eye. They provided French clocks with a
singularly clear metallic striking tick; their blows upon the life of
Time rang sharp above the chant, the mumble, and the jingle. These clocks
seemed to cry aloud, and say of the hours, whose waste they recorded,
“Pereunt - et - impu-tantur, pere - unt - et - imputantur.”
Reckless of this protest, the waves of play rolled on, and ere long
sucked all our characters but Vizard into the vortex. Zoe hazarded a
sovereign on red, and won; then two on black, and won; then four on red,
and won. She was launched, and Fanny too. They got excited, and bet
higher; the croupiers pelted them with golden coins, and they began to
pant and flush, and their eyes to gleam. The old gamblers' eyes seem to
have lost this power--they have grown fishy; but the eyes of these female
novices were a sight. Fanny's, being light gray, gleamed like a panther's
whose prey is within leap. Zoe's dark orbs could not resemble any wild
beast's; but they glowed with unholy fire; and, indeed, all down the
table was now seen that which no painter can convey--for his beautiful
but contracted art confines him to a moment of time--and writers have
strangely neglected to notice, viz., the _progress of the countenance_
under play. Many of the masks melted, as if they had been of wax, and the
natural expressions forced their way; some got flushed with triumph,
others wild and haggard with their losses. One ghastly, glaring loser sat
quite quiet, when his all was gone, but clinched his hands so that the
nails ran into the flesh, and blood trickled: discovering which, a friend
dragged him off like something dead. Nobody minded.
The fat old beau got worried by his teeth and pulled them out in a pet
and pocketed them.
Miss Maitland, who had begun with her gray hair in neat little curls,
deranged one so with convulsive hand that it came all down her cheek, and
looked most rakish and unbecoming. Even Zoe and Fanny had turned from
lambs to leopardesses--patches of red on each cheek, and eyes like
red-hot coals.
The colors had begun to run, and at first the players lost largely to the
bank, with one exception.
Ina Klosking discerned the change, and backed the winning color, then
doubled on it twice. She did this so luckily three or four times that,
though her single stake was at first only forty pounds, gold seemed to
grow around her, and even notes to rise and make a cushion. She, too, was
excited, though not openly; her gloves were off, and her own lovely hand,
the whitest in the room, placed the stakes. You might see a red spot on
her cheek-bone, and a strange glint in her deep eye; but she could not do
anything that was not seemly.
She played calmly, boldly, on the system that had cleared out Ned
Severne, and she won heavily, because she was in luck. It was her hour
and her vein.
By this time Zoe and Fanny were cleaned out; and looked in amazement at
the Klosking, and wondered how she did it.
Miss Maitland, at her last sovereign, began to lean on the victorious
Klosking, and bet as she did: her pile increased. The dove caught sight
of her game, and backed her luck. The creole backed her heavily.
Presently there was an extraordinary run on black. Numbers were caught.
The Klosking won three times, and lost three times; but the bets she won
were double bets, and those she lost were single.
Then came a _refait,_ and the bank swept off half her stake; but even
here she was lucky. She had only forty pounds on.
By-and-by came the event of the night. Black had for some time appeared
to rule the roost, and thrust red off the table, and the Klosking lost
two hundred pounds.
The Klosking put two hundred pounds on red: it won. She doubled: red won.
She doubled: there was a dead silence. The creole lady put the maximum on
red, three hundred pounds: red won. Ina Klosking looked a little pale;
but, driven by some unaccountable impulse, she doubled. So did the
creole. Red won. The automata chucked sixteen hundred pounds to the
Klosking, and six hundred pounds to the other lady. Ina bet forty pounds
on black. Red won again. She put two hundred pounds on black: black won.
She doubled: black won again. She doubled: black won. Doubled again:
black won.
The creole and others stood with her in that last run, and the money was
chucked. But the settlement was followed by a short whisper, and a
croupier, in a voice as mechanical as ever, chanted that the sum set
apart for that table was exhausted for that day.
The Klosking and her backers had broken the bank.