A Woman-Hater Part 24

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-gla.s.ses, 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 d.u.c.h.ess--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 a.s.semblage 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 l.u.s.ty 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 peac.o.c.k'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 peac.o.c.k'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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, 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 n.o.blest 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 f.a.n.n.y 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. f.a.n.n.y'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. n.o.body 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 f.a.n.n.y 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 f.a.n.n.y 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.

CHAPTER IX.

THERE was a buzzing, and a thronging round the victorious player.

Ina rose, and, with a delicate movement of her milk-white hand, turned the mountain of gold and column of notes toward Ashmead. "Make haste, please," she whispered; then put on her gloves deliberately, while Ashmead shoved the gold and the notes anyhow into the inner pockets of his shooting-jacket, and b.u.t.toned it well up.

_"Allons,"_ said she, calmly, and took his arm; but, as she moved away, she saw Zoe Vizard pa.s.sing on the other side of the table. Their eyes met: she dropped Ashmead's arm and made her a sweeping courtesy full of polite consideration, and a sort of courteous respect for the person saluted, coupled with a certain dignity, and then she looked wistfully at her a moment. I believe she would have spoken to her if she had been alone; but Miss Maitland and f.a.n.n.y Dover had, both of them, a trick of putting on _noli-me-tangere_ faces among strangers. It did not mean much; it is an unfortunate English habit. But it repels foreigners: they neither do it nor understand it.