Your hair would
stand on end if I were to tell you how many packs of playing-cards I've
sold her lady-companion within the last three months. The lady-
companion comes here at dusk with a thick black veil over her face, and
she thinks I don't know who she is; but I do know her, and know where
she lives, and whom she lives with.' After this I buy myself a quire of
writing-paper, which I don't want, and I wish my fancy-stationer good
afternoon. 'Oh, oh,' I say to myself when I get outside, 'I know the
meaning of Madame Durski's parties now. Madame Durski's house is a
flash gambling crib, and all those fine gentlemen in cabs and broughams
go there to play cards.'"
"The mistress of a gaming-house!" exclaimed Honoria. "A fitting
companion for Reginald Eversleigh!"
"Just so, ma'am; and a fitting companion for Mr. Victor Carrington
likewise."
"Have you found out anything about _him_?" cried Lady Eversleigh,
eagerly.
"No, ma'am, I haven't. At least, nothing in my way. I've tried his
neighbours, and his tradespeople also, in the character of a postman,
which is respectable, and calculated to inspire confidence. But out of
his tradespeople I can get nothing more than the fact that he is a
remarkably praiseworthy young man, who pays his debts regular, and is
the very best of sons to a highly-respectable mother. There's nothing
much in that, you know, ma'am.
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