you do any better than that?"

"Ah, this dear, droll Cooley!"

The tantalizing witch lifted the youth's glass to his lips and let
him drink, as a mother helps a thirsty child. "_Bebe!_" she laughed
endearingly.

As the lovely Helene pronounced that word, Lady Mount-Rhyswicke was
leaning forward to replace Mellin's empty glass upon the table.

"I don't care whether you're a widow or not!" he shouted furiously. And
he resoundingly kissed her massive shoulder.

There was a wild shout of laughter; even the imperturbable Sneyd (who
had continued to win steadily) wiped tears from his eyes, and Madame
de Vaurigard gave way to intermittent hysteria throughout the ensuing
half-hour.

For a time Mellin sat grimly observing this inexplicable merriment with
a cold smile.

"Laugh on!" he commanded with bitter satire, some ten minutes after play
had been resumed--and was instantly obeyed.

Whereupon his mood underwent another change, and he became convinced
that the world was a warm and kindly place, where it was good to live.
He forgot that he was jealous of Cooley and angry with the Countess; he
liked everybody again, especially Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. "Won't you
sit farther forward?" he begged her earnestly; "so that I can see your
beautiful golden hair?"

He heard but dimly the spasmodic uproar that followed. "Laugh on!" he
repeated with a swoop of his arm. "I don't care! Don't you care either,
Mrs. Mount-Rhyswicke. Please sit where I can see your beautiful golden
hair. Don't be afraid I'll kiss you again. I wouldn't do it for the
whole world. You're one of the noblest women I ever knew. I feel that's
true. I don't know how I know it, but I know it. Let 'em laugh!"

After this everything grew more and more hazy to him. For a time there
was, in the centre of the haze, a nimbus of light which revealed his
cards to him and the towers of chips which he constantly called for and
which as constantly disappeared--like the towers of a castle in Spain.
Then the haze thickened, and the one thing clear to him was a phrase
from an old-time novel he had read long ago:

"Debt of honor."

The three words appeared to be written in flames against a background of
dense fog. A debt of honor was as promissory note which had to be
paid on Monday, and the appeal to the obdurate grandfather--a peer of
England, the Earl of Mount-Rhyswicke, in fact--was made at midnight,
Sunday. The fog grew still denser, lifted for a moment while he wrote