By the laws of England, the existence of a table for _rouge et noir_ is
forbidden. All these precautions were therefore necessary to insure
safety for the guests of Madame Durski.
Paulina, herself, never played. Sometimes she sat with Miss Brewer in
the outer chamber, silent and abstracted, while her visitors amused
themselves in the two other rooms; sometimes she seated herself at the
piano, and played soft, plaintive German sonatas, or _Leider ohne
Worte_, for an hour at a time; sometimes she moved slowly to and fro
amongst the gamblers--now lingering for a few moments behind the chair
of one, now glancing at the cards of another.
One of her most constant visitors was Reginald Eversleigh. Every night
he drove down to Hilton House in a hack cab. He was generally the first
to arrive and the last to depart.
It was also to be observed that almost all the men who assembled in the
drawing-rooms of Hilton House were friends and acquaintances of Sir
Reginald.
It was he who introduced them to the lovely widow. It was he who
tempted them to come night after night, when prudence should have
induced them to stay away.
* * * * *
The association between Reginald Eversleigh and Paulina Durski was no
new alliance.
Immediately after the death of Sir Oswald Eversleigh, Reginald turned
his back upon London, disgusted with the scene of his poverty and
humiliation, eager to find forgetfulness of his bitter disappointments
in the fever and excitement of a more brilliant city than any to be
found in Great Britain.
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