Villona returned quietly to his

piano and played voluntaries for them. The other men played game

after game, flinging themselves boldly into the adventure. They

drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of

Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack of an audience: the wit

was flashing. Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy

did not know exactly who was winning but he knew that he was

losing. But it was his own fault for he frequently mistook his cards

and the other men had to calculate his I.O.U.'s for him. They were

devils of fellows but he wished they would stop: it was getting late.

Someone gave the toast of the yacht The Belle of Newport and

then someone proposed one great game for a finish.


The piano had stopped; Villona must have gone up on deck. It was

a terrible game. They stopped just before the end of it to drink for

luck. Jimmy understood that the game lay between Routh and

Segouin. What excitement! Jimmy was excited too; he would lose,

of course. How much had he written away? The men rose to their

feet to play the last tricks. talking and gesticulating. Routh won.

The cabin shook with the young men's cheering and the cards were

bundled together. They began then to gather in what they had won.

Farley and Jimmy were the heaviest losers.


He knew that he would regret in the morning but at present he was

glad of the rest, glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his

folly. He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head

between his hands, counting the beats of his temples. The cabin

door opened and he saw the Hungarian standing in a shaft of grey

light:


"Daybreak, gentlemen!"


TWO GALLANTS


THE grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city

and a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the

streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed

with a gaily coloured crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps

shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture

below which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the

warm grey evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur.


Two young men came down the hill of Rutland Square. On of

them was just bringing a long monologue to a close. The other,

who walked on the verge of the path and was at times obliged to

step on to the road, owing to his companion's rudeness, wore an

amused listening face. He was squat and ruddy. A yachting cap

was shoved far back from his forehead and the narrative to which

he listened made constant waves of expression break forth over his

face from the corners of his nose and eyes and mouth. Little jets of

wheezing laughter followed one another out of his convulsed body.

His eyes, twinkling with cunning enjoyment, glanced at every

moment towards his companion's face. Once or twice he

rearranged the light waterproof which he had slung over one

shoulder in toreador fashion. His breeches, his white rubber shoes

and his jauntily slung waterproof expressed youth. But his figure

fell into rotundity at the waist, his hair was scant and grey and his

face, when the waves of expression had passed over it, had a

ravaged look.


When he was quite sure that the narrative had ended he laughed

noiselessly for fully half a minute. Then he said:


"Well!... That takes the biscuit!"


His voice seemed winnowed of vigour; and to enforce his words he

added with humour:


"That takes the solitary, unique, and, if I may so call it, recherche

biscuit! "


He became serious and silent when he had said this.