stakes were ruinously high, but I had no need to falter for that. One of the players near me was a fair-haired young man, handsome in face and of aristocratic bearing,—he had been introduced to me as Viscount Lynton. I noticed him particularly on account of the reckless way he had of doubling his stakes suddenly and apparently out of mere bravado, and when he lost, as he mostly did, he laughed uproariously as though he were drunk or delirious. On first beginning to play I was entirely indifferent as to the results of the game, caring nothing at all as to whether I had losses or gains. Lucio did not join us, but sat apart, quietly observant, and watching me, so I fancied, more than anyone. And as chance would have it, all the luck came my way, and I won steadily. The more I won the more excited I became, till presently my humour changed and I was seized by a whimsical desire to lose. I suppose it was the touch of some better impulse in my nature that made me wish this for young Lynton’s sake. For he seemed literally maddened by my constant winnings, and continued his foolhardy and desperate play,—his young face grew drawn and sharply thin, and his eyes glittered with a hungry feverishness. The other gamesters, though sharing in his run of ill-luck, seemed better able to stand it, or perhaps they concealed their feelings more cleverly,—anyhow I know I caught myself very earnestly wishing that this devil’s luck of mine would desert me and set in the young Viscount’s direction. But my wishes were no use,—again and again I gathered up the stakes, till at last the players rose, Viscount Lynton among them.
“Well, I’m cleaned out!” he said, with a loud forced laugh. “You must give me my chance of a revanche to-morrow, Mr Tempest!”
I bowed.
“With pleasure!”
He called a waiter at the end of the room to bring him a brandy and soda, and meanwhile I was surrounded by the rest of the men, all of them repeating the Viscount’s suggestion of a ‘revanche,’ and strenuously urging upon me the necessity of returning to the club the next night in order to give them an opportunity of winning back what they had lost. I readily agreed, and while we were in the midst of talk, Lucio suddenly addressed young Lynton.
“Will you make up another game with me?” he inquired. “I’ll start the bank with this,”—and he placed two crisp notes of five hundred pounds each on the table.
There was a moment’s silence. The Viscount was thirstily drinking his brandy-and-soda, and glanced over the rim of his tall tumbler at the notes with covetous bloodshot eyes,—then he shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “I can’t stake anything,” he said; “I’ve already told you I’m cleaned out,—‘stony-broke,’ as the slang goes. It’s no use my joining.”
“Sit down, sit down, Lynton!” urged one man near him. “I’ll lend you enough to go on with.”
“Thanks, I’d rather not!” he returned, flushing a little. “I’m too much in your debt already. Awfully good of you all the same. You go on, you fellows, and I’ll watch the play.”
“Let me persuade you Viscount Lynton,” said Lucio, looking at him with his dazzling inscrutable smile—“just for the fun of the thing! If you do not feel justified in staking money, stake something trifling and merely nominal, for the sake of seeing whether the luck will turn”—and here he took up a counter—“This frequently represents fifty pounds,—let it represent for once something that is not valuable like money,—your soul, for example!” A burst of laughter broke from all the men. Lucio laughed softly with them.
“We all have, I hope, enough instruction in modern science to be aware that there is no such thing as a soul in existence”—he continued. “Therefore, in proposing it as a stake for this game at baccarat, I really propose less than one hair of your head, because the hair is a something, and the soul is a nothing! Come! Will you risk that non-existent quantity for the chance of winning a thousand pounds?”
The Viscount drained off the last drop of brandy, and turned upon us, his eyes flushing mingled derision and defiance.
“Done!” he exclaimed; whereupon the party sat down.
The game was brief,—and in its rapid excitement, almost breathless. Six or seven minutes sufficed, and Lucio rose, the winner. He smiled as he pointed to the counter which had represented Viscount Lynton’s last stake.
“I have won!” he said quietly. “But you owe me nothing, my dear Viscount, inasmuch as you risked—Nothing! We played this game simply for fun. If souls had any existence of course I should claim yours;—I wonder what I should do with it by the way!” He laughed good-humouredly. “What nonsense, isn’t it!—and how thankful we ought to be that we live in advanced days like the present, when such silly superstitions are being swept aside by the march of progress and pure Reason! Good-night! Tempest and I will give you, your full revenge to-morrow,—the luck is sure to change by then, and you will probably have the victory. Again—good-night!”
He held out his hand,—there was a peculiar melting tenderness in his brilliant dark eyes,—an impressive kindness in his manner. Something—I could not tell what—held us all for the moment spellbound as if by enchantment, and several of the players at other tables, hearing of the eccentric stake that had been wagered and lost, looked over at us curiously from a distance. Viscount Lynton, however, professed himself immensely diverted, and shook Lucio’s proffered hand heartily.
“You are an awfully good fellow!” he said, speaking a little thickly and hurriedly—“And I assure you seriously if I had a soul I should be very glad to part with it for a thousand pounds at the present moment. The soul wouldn’t be an atom of use to me and the thousand pounds would. But I feel convinced I shall win to-morrow!”
“I am equally sure you will!” returned Lucio affably, “In the meantime, you will not find my friend here, Geoffrey Tempest, a hard creditor,—he can afford to wait. But in the case of the lost soul,”—here he paused, looking straight into the young man’s eyes,—“of course I cannot afford to wait!”
The Viscount smiled vaguely at this pleasantry, and almost immediately afterwards left the club. As soon as the door had closed behind him, several of the gamesters exchanged sententious nods and glances.
“Ruined!” said one of them in a sotto-voce.
“His gambling debts are more than he can ever pay”—added another—“And I hear he has lost a clear fifty thousand on the turf.”
These remarks were made indifferently, as though one should talk of the weather,—no sympathy was expressed,—no pity wasted. Every gambler there was selfish to the core, and as I studied their hardened faces, a thrill of honest indignation moved me,—indignation mingled with shame. I was not yet altogether callous or cruel-hearted, though as I look back upon those days which now resemble a wild vision rather than a reality, I know that I was becoming more and more of a brutal egoist with every hour I lived. Still I was so far then from being utterly vile, that I inwardly resolved to write to Viscount Lynton that very evening, and tell him to consider his debt to me cancelled, as I should refuse to claim it. While this thought was passing through my mind, I met Lucio’s gaze fixed steadily upon me. He smiled,—and presently signed to me to accompany him. In a few minutes we had left the club, and were out in the cold night air under a heaven of frostily sparkling stars. Standing still for a moment, my companion laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Tempest, if you are going to be kind-hearted or sympathetic to undeserving rascals, I shall have to part company with you!” he said, with a curious mixture of satire and seriousness in his voice—“I see by the expression of your face that you are meditating some silly disinterested action of pure generosity. Now you might just as well flop down on these paving stones and begin saying prayers in public. You want to let Lynton off his debt,—you are a fool for your pains. He is a born scoundrel,—and has never
