"With pleasure!"
He called a waiter at the end of the room to bring him a brandy and
soda, and meanwhile I was surrounded by the rest of the men, all of them
repeating the Viscount's suggestion of a 'revanche,' and strenuously
urging upon me the necessity of returning to the club the next night in
order to give them an opportunity of winning back what they had lost. I
readily agreed, and while we were in the midst of talk, Lucio suddenly
addressed young Lynton.
"Will you make up another game with me?" he inquired. "I'll start the
bank with this,"--and he placed two crisp notes of five hundred pounds
each on the table.
There was a moment's silence. The Viscount was thirstily drinking his
brandy-and-soda, and glanced over the rim of his tall tumbler at the
notes with covetous bloodshot eyes,--then he shrugged his shoulders
indifferently. "I can't stake anything," he said; "I've already told you
I'm cleaned out,--'stony-broke,' as the slang goes. It's no use my
joining."
"Sit down, sit down, Lynton!" urged one man near him. "I'll lend you
enough to go on with."
"Thanks, I'd rather not!" he returned, flushing a little. "I'm too much
in your debt already. Awfully good of you all the same. You go on, you
fellows, and I'll watch the play."
"Let me persuade you Viscount Lynton," said Lucio, looking at him with
his dazzling inscrutable smile--"just for the fun of the thing! If you
do not feel justified in staking money, stake something trifling and
merely nominal, for the sake of seeing whether the luck will turn"--and
here he took up a counter--"This frequently represents fifty
pounds,--let it represent for once something that is not valuable like
money,--your soul, for example!" A burst of laughter broke from all the
men. Lucio laughed softly with them.
"We all have, I hope, enough instruction in modern science to be aware
that there is no such thing as a soul in existence"--he continued.
"Therefore, in proposing it as a stake for this game at baccarat, I
really propose less than one hair of your head, because the hair is a
something, and the soul is a nothing! Come! Will you risk that
non-existent quantity for the chance of winning a thousand pounds?"
The Viscount drained off the last drop of brandy, and turned upon us,
his eyes flushing mingled derision and defiance.
"Done!" he exclaimed; whereupon the party sat down.
The game was brief,--and in its rapid excitement, almost breathless. Six
or seven minutes sufficed, and Lucio rose, the winner. He smiled as he
pointed to the counter which had represented Viscount Lynton's last
stake.
"I have won!" he said quietly. "But you owe me nothing, my dear
Viscount, inasmuch as you risked--Nothing! We played this game simply
for fun. If souls had any existence of course I should claim yours;--I
wonder what I should do with it by the way!" He laughed good-humouredly.
"What nonsense, isn't it!--and how thankful we ought to be that we live
in advanced days like the present, when such silly superstitions are
being swept aside by the march of progress and pure Reason! Good-night!
Tempest and I will give you, your full revenge to-morrow,--the luck is
sure to change by then, and you will probably have the victory.
Again--good-night!"
He held out his hand,--there was a peculiar melting tenderness in his
brilliant dark eyes,--an impressive kindness in his manner. Something--I
could not tell what--held us all for the moment spellbound as if by
enchantment, and several of the players at other tables, hearing of the
eccentric stake that had been wagered and lost, looked over at us
curiously from a distance. Viscount Lynton, however, professed himself
immensely diverted, and shook Lucio's proffered hand heartily.
"You are an awfully good fellow!" he said, speaking a little thickly and
hurriedly--"And I assure you seriously if I had a soul I should be very
glad to part with it for a thousand pounds at the present moment. The
soul wouldn't be an atom of use to me and the thousand pounds would. But
I feel convinced I shall win to-morrow!"
"I am equally sure you will!" returned Lucio affably, "In the meantime,
you will not find my friend here, Geoffrey Tempest, a hard creditor,--he
can afford to wait. But in the case of the lost soul,"--here he paused,
looking straight into the young man's eyes,--"of course _I_ cannot
afford to wait!"
The Viscount smiled vaguely at this pleasantry, and almost immediately
afterwards left the club. As soon as the door had closed behind him,
several of the gamesters exchanged sententious nods and glances.
"Ruined!" said one of them in a _sotto-voce_.
"His gambling debts are more than he can ever pay"--added another--"And
I hear he has lost a clear fifty thousand on the turf."
These remarks were made indifferently, as though one should talk of the
weather,--no sympathy was expressed,--no pity wasted. Every gambler
there was selfish to the core, and as I studied their hardened faces, a
thrill of honest indignation moved me,--indignation mingled with shame.
I was not yet altogether callous or cruel-hearted, though as I look
back upon those days which now resemble a wild vision rather than a
reality, I know that I was becoming more and more of a brutal egoist
with every hour I lived. Still I was so far then from being utterly
vile, that I inwardly resolved to write to Viscount Lynton that very
evening, and tell him to consider his debt to me cancelled, as I should
refuse to claim it. While this thought was passing through my mind, I
met Lucio's gaze fixed steadily upon me. He smiled,--and presently
signed to me to accompany him. In a few minutes we had left the club,
and were out in the cold night air under a heaven of frostily sparkling
stars. Standing still for a moment, my companion laid his hand on my
shoulder.
"Tempest, if you are going to be kind-hearted or sympathetic to
undeserving rascals, I shall have to part company with you!" he said,
with a curious mixture of satire and seriousness in his voice--"I see by
the expression of your face that you are meditating some silly
disinterested action of pure generosity. Now you might just as well flop
down on these paving stones and begin saying prayers in public. You want
to let Lynton off his debt,--you are a fool for your pains. He is a born
scoundrel,--and has never seen his way to being anything else,--why
should you compassionate him? From the time he first went to college
till now, he has been doing nothing but live a life of degraded
sensuality,--he is a worthless rake, less to be respected than an honest
dog!"
"Yet some one loves him I daresay!" I said.
"Some one loves him!" echoed Lucio with inimitable disdain--"Bah! Three
ballet girls live on him if that is what you mean. His mother loved
him,--but she is dead,--he broke her heart. He is no good I tell
you,--let him pay his debt in full, even to the soul he staked so
lightly. If I were the devil now, and had just won the strange game we
played to-night, I suppose according to priestly tradition, I should be
piling up the fire for Lynton in high glee,--but being what I am, I say
let the man alone to make his own destiny,--let things take their
course,--and as he chose to risk everything, so let him pay
everything."
We were by this time walking slowly into Pall Mall,--I was on the point
of making some reply, when catching sight of a man's figure on the
opposite side of the way, not far from the Marlborough Club, I uttered
an involuntary exclamation.
"Why there he is!" I said--"there is Viscount Lynton!"
Lucio's hand closed tightly on my arm.
"You don't want to speak to him now, surely!"
"No. But I wonder where he's going? He walks rather unsteadily."
"Drunk, most probably!"
And Lucio's face presented the same relentless expression of scorn I had
so often seen and marvelled at.
We paused a moment, watching the Viscount strolling aimlessly up and
down in front of the clubs,--till all at once he seemed to come to a
sudden resolution, and stopping short, he shouted,
"Hansom!"
A silent-wheeled smart vehicle came bowling up immediately. Giving some
order to the driver, he jumped in. The cab approached swiftly in our
direction,--just as it passed us the loud report of a pistol crashed on
the silence.
"Good God!" I cried reeling back a step or two--"He has shot himself!"
The hansom stopped,--the driver sprang down,--club-porters, waiters,
policemen and no end of people starting up from Heaven knows where, were
on the scene on an instant,--I rushed forward to join the rapidly
gathering throng, but before I could do so, Lucio's strong arm was
thrown round me, and he dragged me by main force away.
"Keep cool, Geoffrey!" he said--"Do you want to be called up to
identify? And betray the club and all its members? Not while I am here
to prevent you! Check your mad impulses, my good fellow,--they will lead
you into no end of difficulties. If the man's dead he's dead, and
there's an end of it."
"Lucio! You have no heart!" I exclaimed, struggling violently to escape
from his hold--"How can you stop to reason in such a case! Think of it!
_I_ am the cause of all the mischief!--it is my cursed luck at baccarat
this evening that has been the final blow to the wretched young fellow's
fortunes,--I am convinced of it!--I shall never forgive myself--"
"Upon my word, Geoffrey, your conscience is very tender!" he answered,
holding my arm still more closely and hurrying me away despite
myself--"You must try and toughen it a little if you want to be
successful in life. Your 'cursed luck' you think, has caused Lynton's
death? Surely it is a contradiction in terms to call luck 'cursed,'--and
as for the Viscount, he did not need that last game at baccarat to
emphasise his ruin. You are not to blame. And for the sake of the club,
if for nothing else, I do not intend either you or myself to be mixed up
in a case of suicide. The coroner's verdict always disposes of these
incidents comfortably in two words--'Temporary insanity.'"
I shuddered. My soul sickened as I thought that within a few yards of us
was the bleeding corpse of the man I had so lately seen alive and spoken
with,--and notwithstanding Lucio's words I felt as if I had murdered
him.
"'Temporary insanity'"--repeated Lucio again, as if speaking to
himself--"all remorse, despair, outraged honour, wasted love, together
with the scientific modern theory of Reasonable Nothingness--Life a
Nothing, God a Nothing,--when these drive the distracted human unit to
make of himself also a nothing, 'temporary insanity' covers up his
plunge into the infinite with an untruthful pleasantness. However, after
all, it is as Shakespeare says, a mad world!"
I made no answer. I was too overcome by my own miserable sensations. I
walked along almost unconscious of movement, and as I stared
bewilderedly up at the stars they danced before my sight like fireflies
whirling in a mist of miasma. Presently a faint hope occurred to me.
"Perhaps," I said, "he has not really killed himself? It may be only an
attempt?"
"He was a capital shot"--returned Lucio composedly,--"That was his one
quality. He has no principles,--but he was a good marksman. I cannot
imagine his missing aim."
"It is horrible! An hour ago alive, ... and now ... I tell you, Lucio,
it is horrible!"
"What is? Death? It is not half so horrible as Life lived wrongly,"--he
responded, with a gravity that impressed me in spite of my emotion and
excitement--"Believe me, the mental sickness and confusion of a wilfully
degraded existence are worse tortures than are contained in the priestly
notions of Hell. Come come, Geoffrey, you take this matter too much to
heart,--you are not to blame. If Lynton has given himself the 'happy
dispatch' it is really the best thing he could do,--he was of no use to
anybody, and he is well out of it. It is positively weak of you to
attach importance to such a trifle. You are only at the beginning of
your career----"
"Well, I hope that career will not lead me into any more such tragedies
as the one enacted to-night,"--I said passionately--"If it does, it will
be entirely against my will!"
Lucio looked at me curiously.
"Nothing can happen to you against your will"--he replied; "I suppose
you wish to imply that I am to blame for introducing you to the club? My
good fellow, you need not have gone there unless you had chosen to do
so! I did not bind and drag you there! You are upset and unnerved,--come
into my room and take a glass of wine,--you will feel more of a man
afterwards."
We had by this time reached the hotel, and I went with him passively.
With equal passiveness I drank what he gave me, and stood, glass in
hand, watching him with a kind of morbid fascination as he threw off his
fur-lined overcoat and confronted me, his pale handsome face strangely
set and stern, and his dark eyes glittering like cold steel.
"That last stake of Lynton's, ... to you--" I said falteringly--"His
soul----"
"Which _he_ did not believe in, and which _you_ do not believe in!"
returned Lucio, regarding me fixedly. "Why do you now seem to tremble at
a mere sentimental idea? If fantastic notions such as God, the Soul, and
the Devil were real facts, there would perhaps be cause for trembling,
but being only the brainsick imaginations of superstitious mankind,
there is nothing in them to awaken the slightest anxiety or fear."
"But you"--I began--"you say you believe in the soul?"
"I? I am brainsick!" and he laughed bitterly--"Have you not found that
out yet? Much learning hath driven me mad, my friend! Science has led me
into such deep wells of dark discovery, that it is no wonder if my
senses sometimes reel,--and I believe--at such insane moments--in the
Soul!"