to
Gracia Raglan.

"You see I've been playing games at a disadvantage with some ruffians
at New York. They have combined and got me into a corner. I have made my
last move. If it comes out right I shall be richer than ever; if not I
must begin all over again."

Lady Lawless looked at him curiously. She had never met a man like him
before. His power seemed almost Napoleonic; his imperturbability was
absolute. Yet she noticed something new in him. On one side a kind of
grim forcefulness; on the other, a quiet sort of human sympathy. The
one, no doubt, had to do with the momentous circumstances amid which he
was placed; the other, with an event which she had, perhaps prematurely,
anticipated.

"I wonder--I wonder at you," she said. "How do you keep so cool while
such tremendous things are happening?"

"Because I believe in myself, Lady Lawless. I have had to take my
measure a good many times in this world. I never was defeated through my
own stupidity. It has been the sheer luck of the game."

"You do not look like a gamester," she said.

"I guess it's all pretty much a game in life, if you look at it right.
It is only a case of playing fair or foul."

"I never heard any Englishmen talk as you do."

"Very likely not," he responded. "I don't want to be unpleasant; but
most Englishmen work things out by the rule their fathers taught them,
and not by native ingenuity. It is native wit that tells in the end, I'm
thinking."

"Perhaps you are right," she rejoined. "There must be a kind of genius
in it." Here her voice dropped a little lower. "I do not believe there
are many Englishmen, even if they had your dollars--"

"The dollars I had this morning," he interposed.

"--who could have so strongly impressed Gracia Raglan."

He looked thoughtfully on the ground; then raised his eyes to Lady
Lawless, and said in a low, ringing tone:

"Yes, I am going to do more than 'impress': I am going to convince her."

"When?" she asked.

"To-morrow morning, I hope," was the reply. "I believe I shall have my
millions again."

"If you do," she said slowly, "do you not think that you ought to run no
more risks--for her sake?"

"That is just what I mean to do, Lady Lawless. I'll settle millions
where they ought to be settled, drop Wall Street, and--go into
training."

"Into training?" she asked.

"Yes, for a house on the Hudson, a villa at Cannes, a residence in
Grosvenor Square, and a place in Devonshire--or somewhere