e to? Whither will such progress without reflection take you?"
"He means--to the devil," the lad said inwardly to himself, without
moving his lips. "There is but one goal for such going on as that. I
can pay three thousand four hundred pounds for you certainly. I think
it hard that I should have to do so; but I can do it,--and I will do
it."

"Thank you, sir," murmured Gerald.

"But how can I wash your young mind clean from the foul stain which
has already defiled it? Why did you sit down to play? Was it to win
the money which these men had in their pockets?"

"Not particularly."

"It cannot be that a rational being should consent to risk the
money he has himself,--to risk even the money which he has not
himself,--without a desire to win that which as yet belongs to his
opponents. You desired to win."

"I suppose I did hope to win."

"And why? Why did you want to extract their property from their
pockets, and to put it into your own? That the footpad on the road
should have such desire when, with his pistol, he stops the traveller
on his journey we all understand. And we know what we think of the
footpad,--and what we do to him. He is a poor creature, who from his
youth upwards has had no good thing done for him, uneducated, an
outcast, whom we should pity more than we despise him. We take him as
a pest which we cannot endure, and lock him up where he can harm us
no more. On my word, Gerald, I think that the so-called gentleman
who sits down with the deliberate intention of extracting money from
the pockets of his antagonists, who lays out for himself that way of
repairing the shortcomings of fortune, who looks to that resource as
an aid to his means,--is worse, much worse, than the public robber!
He is meaner, more cowardly, and has I think in his bosom less of the
feelings of an honest man. And he probably has been educated,--as you
have been. He calls himself a gentleman. He should know black from
white. It is considered terrible to cheat at cards."

"There was nothing of that, sir."

"The man who plays and cheats has fallen low indeed."

"I understand that, sir."

"He who plays that he may make an income, but does not cheat, has
fallen nearly as low. Do you ever think what money is?"

The Duke paused so long, collecting his own thoughts and thinking of
his own words, that Gerald found himself obliged to answer. "Cheques,
and sovereigns, and bank-notes," he replied with much hesitation.

"Money is the