best circles; they are enticed by the habit of others, and ruined when
the habit becomes their own.

"You look feverish, Percy," said Saville, as he met his pupil in the
Park. "I don't wonder at it; you lost infernally last night."

"More than I can pay," replied Percy, with a quivering lip.

"No! you shall pay it to-morrow, for you shall go shares with me
to-night. Observe," continued Saville, lowering his voice, "_I never
lose_."

"How _never?_"

"Never, unless by design. I play at no game where chance only presides.
Whist is my favourite game: it is not popular: I am sorry for it. I take
up with other games,--I am forced to do it; but, even at rouge et noir,
I carry about with me the rules of whist. I calculate--I remember."

"But hazard?"

"I never play at that," said Saville, solemnly. "It is the devil's game;
it defies skill. Forsake hazard, and let me teach you ecarte; it is
coming into fashion."

Saville took great pains with Godolphin; and Godolphin, who was by
nature of a contemplative, not hasty mood, was no superficial disciple.
As his biographer, I grieve to confess, that he became, though a
punctiliously honest, a wise and fortunate gamester; and thus he eked
out betimes the slender profits of a subaltern's pay.

This was the first great deterioration in Percy's mind--a mind which
ought to have made him a very different being from what he became, but
which no vice, no evil example, could ever entirely pervert.

CHAPTER VII.

SAVILLE EXCUSED FOR HAVING HUMAN AFFECTIONS.--GODOLPHIN SEES ONE WHOM HE
NEVER SEES AGAIN.--THE NEW ACTRESS.

Saville was deemed the consummate man of the world--wise and heartless.
How came he to take such gratuitous pains with the boy Godolphin? In
the first place, Saville had no legitimate children; Godolphin was his
relation; in the second place it may be observed that hackneyed and
sated men of the world are fond of the young, in whom they recognise
something--a better something belonging to themselves. In Godolphin's
gentleness and courage, Saville thought he saw the mirror of his
own crusted urbanity and scheming perseverance; in Godolphin's
fine imagination and subtle intellect he beheld his own cunning and
hypocrisy. The boy's popularity flattered him; the boy's conversation
amused. No man is so heartless but that he is capable of strong likings,
when they do not put him much out of his way; it was this sort of liking
that Saville had for Godolphin. Beside