"Did I win when you were there?" he asked, carelessly. "Upon my word, I
have forgotten all about it."
"I haven't," answered Lord Caversham. "I bled pretty freely on several
occasions when you and I played _ecarte_; and I have not forgotten the
figures on the cheques I had the pleasure of signing in your favour.
No, my dear Eversleigh, although I consider Madame Durski the most
charming of women, I don't feel inclined to go to Hilton House again."
"Ah!" said Sir Reginald, with a sneer; "there are so few men who have
the art of losing with grace. We have no Stavordales now-a-days. The
man who could win eleven thousand at a coup, and regret that he was not
playing high, since in that case he would have won millions, is an
extinct animal."
"No doubt of it, dear boy; the gentlemanly art of losing placidly is
dying out; and I confess that, for my part, I prefer winning," answered
Lord Caversham, coolly.
This brief conversation was a very unpleasant one for Sir Reginald
Eversleigh. It told him that his career as a gamester must soon come to
a close, or he would find himself a disgraced and branded wretch,
avoided and despised by the men he now called his friends.
It was evident that Viscount Caversham suspected that he had been
cheated; nor was it likely that he would keep his suspicions secret
from the men of his set.
The suspicion once whispered would speedily be repeated by others who
had lost money in the saloons of Madame Durski.
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