第189章

Gerald told his story, standing bolt upright, and looking his father full in the face as he told it. 'You lost three thousand four hundred pounds at one sitting to Lord Percival--at cards!'

'Yes, sir.'

'In Lord Nidderdale's house.'

'Yes, sir. Nidderdale wasn't playing. It wasn't his fault.'

'Who were playing?'

'Percival, and Dolly Longstaff, and Jack Hinde,--and I. Popplecourt was playing at first.'

'Lord Popplecourt!'

'Yes, sir. But he went away when he began to lose.'

'Three thousand four hundred pounds! How old are you?'

'I am just twenty-one.'

'You are beginning the world well, Gerald! What is the engagement which Silverbridge has made with Lord Percival?'

'To pay him the money at the end of next month.'

'What had Silverbridge to do with it?'

'Nothing, sir. I wrote to Silverbridge because I didn't know what to do. I knew he would stand me.'

'Who is to stand either of you if you go on thus I do not know.'

To this Gerald of course made no reply, but an idea came across his mind that he knew who would stand both himself and his brother. 'How did Silverbridge mean to get the money?'

'He said he would ask you. But I thought that I ought to tell you.'

'Is that all?'

'All what, sir?'

'Are there other debts?' To this Gerald made no reply. 'Other gambling debts?'

'No, sir;--not a shilling of that kind. I have never played before.'

'Does it ever occur to you that going on at that rate you may very soon lose all the fortune that will ever come to you? You were not yet of age and you lost three thousand four hundred pounds at cards to a man whom you probably knew to be a professed gambler!'

Then the Duke seemed to wait for a reply, but poor Gerald had not a word to say. 'Can you explain to me what benefit you proposed to yourself when you played for such stakes as that?'

'I hoped to win back what I had lost.'

'Facilis descensus Averni!' said the Duke, shaking his head.

'Noctes atque dies patet atri jauna Ditis.' No doubt, he thought, that as his son was at Oxford, admonitions in Latin would serve him better than in his native tongue. But Gerald, when he heard the grand hexameter rolled out in his father's grandest tone, entertained a comfortable feeling that the worst of the interview was over. 'Win back what you had lost! Do you think that that is the common fortune of young gamblers when they fall among those who are more experienced than themselves?'

'One goes on, sir, without reflecting.'

'Go on without reflecting! Yes, and where to? where to? Oh, Gerald, where to? Whither will such progress without reflection take you?' 'He means--to the devil,' said the lad inwardly to himself, without moving his lips. 'There is but one goal for such going on as that. I can pay three thousand four hundred pounds to you certainly. I think it hard that I should have to do so; but I can do it,--and I will do it.'

'Thank you, sir,' murmured Gerald.

'But how can I wash your young mind clean from the foul stain which has already defiled it? Why did you sit down to play? Was it to win the money which these men had in their pockets?'

'Not particularly.'

'It cannot be that a rational being should consent to risk the money he has himself,--to risk even the money which he has not himself,--without a desire to win that which as yet belongs to his opponents. You desired to win.'

'I suppose I did hope to win.'

'And why? Why did you want to extract their property from their pockets, and to put it into your own? That the footpad on the road should have such desire when, with his pistol, he stops the traveller on his journey we all understand. And we know what to think of the footpad,--and what we must do to him. He is a poor creature, who from his youth upwards has had no good thing done for him, uneducated, an outcast, whom we should pity more than we despise him. We take him as a pest which we cannot endure, and lock him up where he can harm us no more. On my word, Gerald, I think that the so-called gentleman who sits down with the deliberate intention of extracting money from the pockets of his antagonists, who lays out for himself that way of repairing the shortcomings of fortune, who looks to that resource as an aid to his means,---is worse, much worse, than the public robber! He is meaner, more cowardly, and has I think in his bosom less of the feeling of an honest man. And he probably has been educated,--as you have been. He calls himself a gentleman. He should know black from whit. It is considered terrible to cheat at cards.'

'There was nothing of that, sir.'

'The man who plays and cheats has fallen low indeed.

'I understand that, sir.'

'He who plays that he may make an income, but does not cheat, has fallen nearly as low. Do you ever think what money is?'

The Duke paused so long, collecting his own thoughts and thinking of his own words, that Gerald found himself obliged to answer.

'Cheques, and sovereigns, and bank-notes,' he replied with much hesitation.

'Money is the reward of labour,' said the Duke, 'or rather, in the shape it reaches you, it is your representation of that reward.

You may earn it yourself, or, as is, I am afraid, more likely to be the case with you, you may possess it honestly as prepared for you by the labour of others who have stored it up for you. But it is a commodity of which you are bound to see that the source is not only clean but noble. You would not let Lord Percival give you money.'

'He wouldn't do that, sir, I am sure.'