y it? You don't really want any of those horrid
people's money?"

"I'll tell you what I want,--something to live for,--some excitement.
Is it not a shame that I see around me so many people getting
amusement, and that I can get none? I'd go and sit out there, and
drink beer and hear the music, only Plantagenet wouldn't let me. I
think I'll throw one piece on to the table to see what becomes of
it."

"I shall leave you if you do," said Alice.

"You are such a prude! It seems to me as if it must have been my
special fate,--my good fate, I mean,--that has thrown me so much with
you. You look after me quite as carefully as Mr Bott and Mrs Marsham
ever did; but as I chose you myself, I can't very well complain, and
I can't very well get rid of you."

"Do you want to get rid of me, Cora?"

"Sometimes. Do you know, there are moments when I almost make up my
mind to go headlong to the devil,--when I think it is the best thing
to be done. It's a hard thing for a woman to do, because she has to
undergo so much obloquy before she gets used to it. A man can take to
drinking, and gambling and all the rest of it, and nobody despises
him a bit. The domestic old fogies give him lectures if they can
catch him, but he isn't fool enough for that. All he wants is money,
and he goes away and has his fling. Now I have plenty of money,--or,
at any rate, I had,--and I never got my fling yet. I do feel so
tempted to rebel, and go ahead, and care for nothing."

"Throwing one piece on to the table wouldn't satisfy that longing."

"You think I should be like the wild beast that has tasted blood,
and can't be controlled. Look at all these people here. There are
husbands gambling, and their wives don't know it; and wives gambling,
and their husbands don't know it. I wonder whether Plantagenet ever
has a fling? What a joke it would be to come and catch him!"

"I don't think you need be afraid."

"Afraid! I should like him all the better for it. If he came to me,
some morning, and told me that he had lost a hundred thousand pounds,
I should be so much more at my ease with him."

"You have no chance in that direction, I'm quite sure."

"None the least. He'd make a calculation that the chances were nine
to seven against him, and then the speculation would seem to him to
be madness."

"I don't suppose he'd wish to try, even though he were sure of
winning."

"Of course not. It would be a very vulgar kind of thing then.
Look,--there's an