Confession; Or, The Blind Heart Part 22

"Better not to fall."

"Ah! you are too late from Utopia. But--"

We were interrupted; a voice at my elbow--a soft, clear, insinuating voice addressed my companion:--

"Ah, Monsieur Kingsley, I rejoice to see you."

Kingsley gave me a single look, which said everything, as he turned to meet the new-comer. The latter continued:--

"Though worsted in that last encounter, you do not despair, I see."

"No! why should I?"

"True, why? Fortune baffles skill, but what of that? She is capricious.

Her despotism is feminine; and in her empire, more certainly than any other, it may be said boldly, that, with change of day there is change of doom. It is not always rain."

"Perhaps not, but we may have such a long spell of it that everything is drowned. 'It's a long lane,' says the proverb, 'that has no turn;' but a man be done up long before he gets to the turning place."

The other replied by some of the usual commonplaces by which, in condescending language, the gamester provoked and stimulates his unconscious victim. Kingsley, however, had reached a period of experience which enabled him to estimate these phrases at their proper worth.

"You would encourage me," he said quietly, and in tones which, to the unnoteful ear, would have seemed natural enough, but which, knowing him as I did, were slightly sarcastic, and containing a deeper signification than they gave out: "but you are the better player. I am now convinced of that. Something there is in fortune, doubtless; my self-esteem makes me willing to admit that; and yet I do not deceive myself. You have been too much for me--you are!"

"The difference is trifling, very trifling, I suspect. A little more practice will soon reconcile that."

"Ha! ha! you forget the practice is to be paid for."

"True, but it is the base spirit only that scruples at the cost of its accomplishments."

"Surely, surely!"

"You are fresh for the encounter to-night?"

"Pleasantly put! Is the query meant for the player or his purse?"

"Good, very good! Why, truly, there is no necessary affinity between them."

"And yet the one without the other would scarcely be able to commend himself to so excellent an artist as Mr. Latour Cleveland. Clifford, let me introduce you to my ENEMY; Mr. Cleveland, my FRIEND."

In this manner was I introduced. Thus was I made acquainted with the particular individual whom it was the meditated purpose of Kingsley to expose. But, though thus marked in the language of his introduction, there was nothing in the tone or manner of my companion, at all calculated to alarm the suspicions of the other. On the contrary, there was a sort of reckless joviality in the air of ABANDON, with which he presented me and spoke. A natural curiosity moved me to examine Cleveland more closely. He was what we should call, in common speech, a very elegant young man. He was probably thirty or thirty-five years of age, tall, graceful, rather slenderish, and of particular nicety in his dress. All his clothes were disposed with the happiest precision. White kid-gloves covered his taper fingers. Withdrawn, a rich diamond blazed upon one hand, while a seal-ring, of official dimensions, with characters cut in lava, decorated the other. His movements betrayed the same nice method which distinguished the arrangement of his dress. His evolutions might all have been performed by trumpet signal, and to the sound of measured music. He was evidently one of those persons whose feelings are too little earnest, ever to affect their policy; too little warm ever to disparage the rigor of their customary play; one of those cold, nice men, who, without having a single pa.s.sion at work to produce one condition of feeling higher than another, are yet the very ideals of the most narrow and concentrated selfishness. His face was thin, pale, and intelligent. His lips were thick, however--the eyes bright, like those of a snake, but side-looking, never direct, never upward, and always with a smiling shyness in their glance, in which a suspicious mind like my own would always find sufficient occasion for distrust.

Mr. Cleveland bestowed a single keen glance upon me while going through the ordeal of introduction. But his scrutiny labored under one disadvantage. His eyes did not encounter mine! One loses a great deal, if his object be the study of human nature, if he fails in this respect.

"Much pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Clifford; I trust, however, you will find me no worse enemy than your friend has done."

"If he find YOU no worse, he will find himself no better. He will pay for his enmity, whatever its degree, as I have done, and be wiser, by reason of his losses."

"Ah! you think too much of your ill fortunes. That is bad. It takes from your confidence and so enfeebles your skill. You should think of it less seriously. Another cast, and the tables change. You will have your revenge."

"I WILL!" said Kingsley with some emphasis, and a gravity which the other did not see. He evidently heard the words only as he had been accustomed to hear them--from the lips of young gamesters who perpetually delude themselves with hopes based upon insane expectations.

A benignant smile mantled the cheeks of the gamester.

"Ah, well! I am ready; but if you think me too much for you--"

He paused. The taunt was deliberately intended. It was the customary taunt of the gamester. On the minds of half the number of young men, it would have had the desired effect--of goading vanity, and provoking the self-esteem of the conceited boy into a sort of desperation, when the powers of sense and caution become mostly suspended, and no unnecessary suspicion or watchfulness then interferes to increase the difficulty of plucking the pigeon. I read the smile on Kingsley's lip. It was brief, momentary, pleasantly contemptuous. Then, suddenly, as if he had newly recollected his policy, his countenance a.s.sumed a new expression--one more natural to the youth who has been depressed by losses, vexed at defeat, but flatters himself that the atonement is at hand. Perhaps, something of the latent purpose of his mind increased the intense bitterness in the manner and tones of my companion.

"Too much for me, Mr. Cleveland! No, no! You are willing, I see, to rob good fortune of some of her dues. You crow too soon. I have a shrewd presentiment that I shall be quite too much FOR YOU to-night."

A pleasant and well-satisfied smile of Cleveland answered the speaker.

"I like that," said he; "it proves two things, both of which please me.

Your trifling losses have not hurt your fortunes nor the adverse run of luck made you despond of better success hereafter. It is something of a guaranty in favor of one's performance that he is sure of himself. In such case he is equally sure of his opponent."

"Look to it, then, for I have just that sort of self-guaranty which makes me sure of mine. I shall play deeply, that I may make the most of my presentiments. Nay, to show you how confident I am, this night restores me all that I have lost, or leaves me nothing more to lose."

The eyes of the other brightened.

"That is said like a man. I thank you for your warning. Shall we begin?"

"Ready, ay, ready!" was the response of Kingsley, as he turned to one of the tables. Quietly laying down upon it the short, heavy stick which he carried, he threw off his gloves, and rubbed his hands earnestly together, laughing the while without restraint, as if possessed suddenly of some very pleasant and ludicrous fancy.

"They laugh who win," remarked Cleveland, with something of coldness in his manner.

"Ha! ha! ha!" was the only answer of Kingsley to this remark. The other continued--and I now clearly perceived that his purpose was provocation:--

"It is certainly a pleasure to win your money, Kingsley--you bear it with so much philosophy. Nay, it seems to give you pleasure, and thus lessens the pain I should otherwise feel in receiving the fruits of my superiority."

"Ha! ha! ha!" again repeated Kingsley. "Excuse me, Mr. Cleveland. I am reminded of your remark, 'They laugh who win.' I am laughing, as it were, antic.i.p.atively. I am so certain that I shall have my revenge to-night."

Cleveland looked at him for a moment with some curiosity, then called:--

"Philip!"

He was answered by a young mulatto--a tall, good-looking fellow, who approached with a mixed air of equal deference and self-esteem, plaited frills to a most immaculately white shirt-collar, a huge bulbous breastpin in his bosom, chains and seals, and all the usual equipments of Broadway dandyism. The fellow approached us with a smile; his eyes looking alternately to Cleveland and Kingsley, and, as I fancied, with no unequivocal sneer in their expression, as they settled on the latter.

A significance of another kind appeared in the look of Cleveland as he addressed him.

"Get us the pictures, Philip--the latest cuts--and bring--ay, you may bring the ivories."

In a few moments, the preliminaries being despatched, the two were seated at a table, and a couple of packs of cards were laid beside them.

Kingsley drew my attention to the cards. They were of a kind that my experience had never permitted me to see before. In place of ordinary kings and queens and knaves, these figures were represented in att.i.tudes and costumes the most indecent--such as the prolific genius of Parisian bawdry alone could conceive and delineate. It seems to be a general opinion among rogues that knavery is never wholly triumphant unless the mind is thoroughly degraded; and for this reason it is, perhaps, that establishments devoted to purposes like the present, have, in most countries, for their invariable adjuncts, the brothel and the bar-room.

If they are not in the immediate tenement, they are sufficiently nigh to make the work of moral prost.i.tution comparatively easy, in all its ramifications, with the young and inconsiderate mind. Kingsley turned over the cards, and I could see that while affecting to show me the pictures he was himself subjecting the cards to a close inspection of another kind. This object was scarcely perceptible to myself, who knew his suspicions, and could naturally conjecture his policy. It did not excite the alarm of his antagonist.

The parties sat confronting each other. Kingsley drew forth a wallet, somewhat ostentatiously, which he laid down beside him. The sight of his wallet staggered me. By its bulk I should judge it to have held thousands; yet he had a.s.sured me that he had nothing beside, the one hundred dollars which he had procured from me. My surprise increased as I saw him open the wallet, and draw from one of its pockets the identical roll which I had put into his hands. The bulk of the pocket-book seeemed (sic) scarcely to be diminished. My suspicions were beginning to be roused. I began to think that he had told me a falsehood; but he looked up at this instant, and a bright manly smile on his deep purposeful countenance, rea.s.sured me. I felt that there was some policy in the business which was not for me then to fathom. The cards were cut. A box of dice was also in the hands of Cleveland.

"Spots or pictures?" said Cleveland.

"Pictures first, I suppose," said Kingsley, "till the blood gets up.

The ivories then as the most rapid. But these pictures are really so tempting. A new supply, Philip!"