Confessions of a Young Lady Part 31

"Did you? How much have you lost?"

"How do you know I've lost?"

"Why?" Mr Lintorn shrugged his shoulders. "The man happens to be a cheat."

"Don't--don't you say that again!"

"Why not? You would have seen it yourself if you had had your wits about you. He was cheating all the time."

"You--!"

Mr Davison struck at his friend. Mr Lintorn warded off the blow. Mr Davison struck again. The man was drunk and bent upon a row. It was impossible to avoid him without actually turning tail and fleeing. So Mr Lintorn let him have it. Mr Davison lay on his back among the cobble-stones. Mr Lintorn advanced to his a.s.sistance. The rec.u.mbent hero greeted him with a volley of abuse. Seeing that to persist would only be to bring about a renewal of hostilities, Mr Lintorn strolled off to the hotel alone, leaving Mr Davison to follow at his leisure.

CHAPTER III

The next morning Mr Davison did not put in an appearance at breakfast.

So Mr Lintorn went to look for him in his room. He knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" growled a voice within.

"Lintorn. May I come in?"

Without waiting for the required permission he entered. The hero was still in bed. There was that look about him which is noticeable in the ordinarily sober youth who has enjoyed the night before not wisely, but too well. And his eye--outside the actual organ--was a beautiful black. Mr Lintorn started at sight of these signs of mourning.

"Davison, I had no idea--"

"You had no idea of what, sir? What do you mean by entering my room?"

"I cannot express to you how ashamed of myself I feel. I--I had no idea that I had hit so hard."

Mr Lintorn felt--too late--that this was one of those delicate subjects which are best avoided. But the words were spoken.

"Look here, Mr Lintorn: I chanced to stay in the same hotel with you at Nice, and it has suited me since, as a traveller, to adapt my movements to yours. Beyond that, you are a perfect stranger to me. You are, at best, but a chance acquaintance. Be so good as to consider that acquaintance dropped."

Mr Davison spoke, or intended to speak, with the dignity and the hauteur which are appropriate to the travelling man of fas.h.i.+on, who has spent six weeks abroad. But such a character is difficult to maintain when one has "hot coppers" and a black eye, and is lying in bed. None the less Mr Lintorn perceived that the present was not a favourable moment for argument. He fixed his gla.s.s in his eye, gave Mr Davison just one look, bowed, and left him to his dignity.

Mr Davison rang for his shaving-water, and the waiter who brought it was so indiscreet as to notice the gentleman's condition--the condition, that is, of what has been called his optic.

"_Mais, monsieur est blesse!_"

Mr Davison's knowledge of French was not peculiar for its extent, but it was sufficient to render him aware that the man exaggerated the actual fact.

"Get out!" he shouted.

The man got out, having learned, it is to be hoped, a lesson in tact.

When Mr Davison began to shave he found that his hand was shaky. His temper was ruffled, his head ached most dreadfully. The looking-gla.s.s revealed with terrible distinctness the state of his eye; it was really not surprising that the waiter had found it impossible to avoid making his little observation. In shaving--not, by the way, in his case an absolutely indispensable operation--he cut a gash about an inch and a half in length on the most prominent part of his chin.

This, ornamented with a strip of yellow sticking-plaster, did not, so to speak, harmonise with the rest of his appearance. It did not harmonise with his temper, either; he was in a mood to cut the throat of the first man he met.

When he had completed his toilet he sat down and penned the following note:--

"Mr Davison presents his compliments to M. de Fontanes. He encloses notes to the value of three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs--the amount of his overnight losses at _ecarte_. As such a sum is larger than Mr Davison cares to lose, he would be obliged by M. de Fontanes giving him his revenge at the earliest possible moment--say this evening at eight o'clock."

Mr Davison felt this was a communication which any man might be proud of having written; that it conveyed the impression that he was not a lad to be trifled with, and that it would give M. de Fontanes and his daughter to understand that, sooner or later, he would be quits, and more. Before enclosing the notes it was necessary to have the notes to enclose. That involved sallying forth to get them. So he sallied forth, patched chin, black eye, and all, to the banking-house of MM.

Adam et Cie. Those gentlemen were so good as to honour his cheque to the extent he required--not, however, without commiserating him both on the state of his chin and the state of his eye. Having received his notes, he sent his letter. Then he returned to the hotel to wait for a reply. It came.

"MON BRAVE.--Ce soir, a huit heures, chez moi. Mille remerciments.

"DE FONTANES."

Although M. de Fontanes spoke such fluent English, it appeared that he preferred to trust to his own language when it came to pen and paper.

On the stroke of eight Mr Davison made his appearance in the Rue des Anges. His entry made a small sensation. Mdlle. de Fontanes, advancing to meet him, stopped short with a little cry.

"Mr Davison! Oh, what is the matter! Are--are you ill?"

Mr Davison turned the colour of a boiled beetroot.

"I do not understand you," he said.

The father's tact was finer than the daughter's.

"On the stroke of the hour!" he murmured, extending his hand to greet his guest, as though guests with patched chins and black eyes were everyday occurrences.

They sat down to play. Before they commenced Mr Davison delivered himself of a few remarks.

"You must understand, M. de Fontanes, that I have lost more than I quite care to lose. Therefore, I cannot afford to play for trifling stakes. I suggest with your permission, that we commence with five-pound points."

"Five-pound points!" cried mademoiselle. Her distress seemed genuine.

"I said five-pound points."

Mr Davison's manner towards the daughter of the house was scarcely courteous. Perhaps he resented the surprise she had shown at his appearance.

"Five pounds--or fifty."

M. de Fontanes smiled at the board as he murmured this liberal agreement with his guest's suggestion.

It was not the drink that night, but the cards! The younger player never touched a king. Never had a man such luck before. In so short a s.p.a.ce of time as to make the whole affair seem like a conjuring trick, his debt to M. de Fontanes had entered its second century. He appeared to grow bewildered, as, indeed, in the face of such a run of luck an older player might easily have done. He got into such a state that he would have been unable to play the cards even if he had had them, and he never had them.

"This--this is awful!" he groaned. "At this rate I shall be able to do nothing even if luck turns. What do you say to doubling the stakes?"

Mdlle. de Fontanes was reclining in an easy-chair, ostensibly reading a book; in reality following the game. She sprang to her feet.