of St. James should have been fortunate at least to-night. You always
win at first, you know. If so, we advise said children of fancy and of
fact to pocket their gains, and not play again. The young Duke had not
the opportunity of thus acting. He lost fifteen hundred pounds, and at
half-past five he quitted the Baron's.

Hot, bilious, with a confounded twang in his mouth, and a cracking pain
in his head, he stood one moment and sniffed in the salt sea breeze.
The moon was unfortunately on the waters, and her cool, beneficent light
reminded him, with disgust, of the hot, burning glare of the Baron's
saloon. He thought of May Dacre, but clenched his fist, and drove her
image from his mind.

CHAPTER VII.

_Dangerous Friends_

HE ROSE late, and as he was lounging over his breakfast, entered Lord
Bagshot and the Baron. Already the young Duke began to experience one
of the gamester's curses, the intrusive society of those of whom you
are ashamed. Eight-and-forty hours ago, Lord Bagshot would no more have
dared to call on the Duke of St. James than to call at the Pavilion; and
now, with that reckless want of tact which marks the innately vulgar,
he seemed to triumph in their unhallowed intimacy, and lounging into
his Grace's apartment with that half-shuffling, hair-swaggering air
indicative of the 'cove,' hat cocked, and thumbs in his great-coat
pockets, cast his complacent eye around, and praised his Grace's
'rooms.' Lord Bagshot, who for the occasional notice of the Duke of St.
James had been so long a ready and patient butt, now appeared to assume
a higher character, and addressed his friend in a tone and manner which
were authorised by the equality of their rank and the sympathy of their
tastes. If this change had taken place in the conduct of the Viscount,
it was not a singular one. The Duke also, to his surprise, found himself
addressing his former butt in a very different style from that which he
had assumed in the ballroom of Doncaster. In vain he tried to rally, in
vain he tried to snub. It was indeed in vain. He no longer possessed any
right to express his contempt of his companion. That contempt, indeed,
he still felt. He despised Lord Bagshot still, but he also despised
himself.

The soft and silky Baron was a different sort of personage; but
there was something sinister in all his elaborate courtesy and highly
artificial manner, which did not touch the feelings of the Duke, whose
courtesy was but