A Laodicean : A Story of To-day

by Thomas Hardy

  IV.

  Here he was confronted by a heated phantasmagoria of splendour and ahigh pressure of suspense that seemed to make the air quiver. A lowwhisper of conversation prevailed, which might probably have been notwrongly defined as the lowest note of social harmony.

  The people gathered at this negative pole of industry had come fromall civilized countries; their tongues were familiar with many forms ofutterance, that of each racial group or type being unintelligible in itssubtler variations, if not entirely, to the rest. But the language ofmeum and tuum they collectively comprehended without translation. In ahalf-charmed spell-bound state they had congregated in knots, standing,or sitting in hollow circles round the notorious oval tables marked withfigures and lines. The eyes of all these sets of people were watchingthe Roulette. Somerset went from table to table, looking among theloungers rather than among the regular players, for faces, or at leastfor one face, which did not meet his gaze.

  The suggestive charm which the centuries-old impersonality Gaming,rather than games and gamesters, had for Somerset, led him to loiter oneven when his hope of meeting any of the Power and De Stancy party hadvanished. As a non-participant in its profits and losses, fevers andfrenzies, it had that stage effect upon his imagination which isusually exercised over those who behold Chance presented to them withspectacular piquancy without advancing far enough in its acquaintance tosuffer from its ghastly reprisals and impish tricks. He beheld a hundreddiametrically opposed wishes issuing from the murky intelligences arounda table, and spreading down across each other upon the figured diagramin their midst, each to its own number. It was a network of hopes; whichat the announcement, 'Sept, Rouge, Impair, et Manque,' disappeared likemagic gossamer, to be replaced in a moment by new. That all the peoplethere, including himself, could be interested in what to the eye ofperfect reason was a somewhat monotonous thing--the property of numbersto recur at certain longer or shorter intervals in a machine containingthem--in other words, the blind groping after fractions of a resultthe whole of which was well known--was one testimony among many of thepowerlessness of logic when confronted with imagination.

  At this juncture our lounger discerned at one of the tables about thelast person in the world he could have wished to encounter there. It wasDare, whom he had supposed to be a thousand miles off, hanging about thepurlieus of Markton.

  Dare was seated beside a table in an attitude of application whichseemed to imply that he had come early and engaged in this pursuit ina systematic manner. Somerset had never witnessed Dare and De Stancytogether, neither had he heard of any engagement of Dare by thetravelling party as artist, courier, or otherwise; and yet it crossedhis mind that Dare might have had something to do with them, or at leasthave seen them. This possibility was enough to overmaster Somerset'sreluctance to speak to the young man, and he did so as soon as anopportunity occurred.

  Dare's face was as rigid and dry as if it had been encrusted withplaster, and he was like one turned into a computing machine which nolonger had the power of feeling. He recognized Somerset as indifferentlyas if he had met him in the ward of Stancy Castle, and replying to hisremarks by a word or two, concentrated on the game anew.

  'Are you here alone?' said Somerset presently.

  'Quite alone.' There was a silence, till Dare added, 'But I have seensome friends of yours.' He again became absorbed in the events of thetable. Somerset retreated a few steps, and pondered the question whetherDare could know where they had gone. He disliked to be beholden to Darefor information, but he would give a great deal to know. While pausinghe watched Dare's play. He staked only five-franc pieces, but it wasdone with an assiduity worthy of larger coin. At every half-minute orso he placed his money on a certain spot, and as regularly had themortification of seeing it swept away by the croupier's rake. After awhile he varied his procedure. He risked his money, which from thelook of his face seemed rather to have dwindled than increased, lessrecklessly against long odds than before. Leaving off backing numbers enplein, he laid his venture a cheval; then tried it upon the dozens; thenupon two numbers; then upon a square; and, apparently getting nearer andnearer defeat, at last upon the simple chances of even or odd, over orunder, red or black. Yet with a few fluctuations in his favour fortunebore steadily against him, till he could breast her blows no longer. Herose from the table and came towards Somerset, and they both moved ontogether into the entrance-hall.

  Dare was at that moment the victim of an overpowering mania for moremoney. His presence in the South of Europe had its origin, as may beguessed, in Captain De Stancy's journey in the same direction, whomhe had followed, and troubled with persistent request for more funds,carefully keeping out of sight of Paula and the rest. His dream ofinvolving Paula in the De Stancy pedigree knew no abatement. ButSomerset had lighted upon him at an instant when that idea, though notdisplaced, was overwhelmed by a rage for play. In hope of being able tocontinue it by Somerset's aid he was prepared to do almost anything toplease the architect.

  'You asked me,' said Dare, stroking his impassive brow, 'if I had seenanything of the Powers. I have seen them; and if I can be of any use toyou in giving information about them I shall only be too glad.'

  'What information can you give?'

  'I can tell you where they are gone to.'

  'Where?'

  'To the Grand Hotel, Genoa. They went on there this afternoon.'

  'Whom do you refer to by they?'

  'Mrs. Goodman, Mr. Power, Miss Power, Miss De Stancy, and the worthycaptain. He leaves them tomorrow: he comes back here for a day on hisway to England.'

  Somerset was silent. Dare continued: 'Now I have done you a favour, willyou do me one in return?'

  Somerset looked towards the gaming-rooms, and said dubiously, 'Well?'

  'Lend me two hundred francs.'

  'Yes,' said Somerset; 'but on one condition: that I don't give them toyou till you are inside the hotel you are staying at.'

  'That can't be; it's at Nice.'

  'Well I am going back to Nice, and I'll lend you the money the instantwe get there.'

  'But I want it here, now, instantly!' cried Dare; and for the firsttime there was a wiry unreasonableness in his voice that fortified hiscompanion more firmly than ever in his determination to lend the youngman no money whilst he remained inside that building.

  'You want it to throw it away. I don't approve of it; so come with me.'

  'But,' said Dare, 'I arrived here with a hundred napoleons and more,expressly to work out my theory of chances and recurrences, which issound; I have studied it hundreds of times by the help of this.' Hepartially drew from his pocket the little volume that we have beforeseen in his hands. 'If I only persevere in my system, the certainty thatI must win is almost mathematical. I have staked and lost two hundredand thirty-three times. Allowing out of that one chance in everythirty-six, which is the average of zero being marked, and two hundredand four times for the backers of the other numbers, I have themathematical expectation of six times at least, which would nearlyrecoup me. And shall I, then, sacrifice that vast foundation of wastechances that I have laid down, and paid for, merely for want of a littleready money?'

  'You might persevere for a twelvemonth, and still not get the better ofyour reverses. Time tells in favour of the bank. Just imagine for thesake of argument that all the people who have ever placed a stake upon acertain number to be one person playing continuously. Has that imaginaryperson won? The existence of the bank is a sufficient answer.'

  'But a particular player has the option of leaving off at anypoint favourable to himself, which the bank has not; and there's myopportunity.'

  'Which from your mood you will be sure not to take advantage of.'

  'I shall go on playing,' said Dare doggedly.

  'Not with my money.'

  'Very well; we won't part as enemies,' replied Dare, with the flawlesspoliteness of a man whose speech has no longer any kinship with hisfeelings. 'Shall we share a bottle of wine? You will not? Well, I hopeyour luck with
your lady will be more magnificent than mine has beenhere; but--mind Captain De Stancy! he's a fearful wildfowl for you.'

  'He's a harmless inoffensive soldier, as far as I know. If he isnot--let him be what he may for me.'

  'And do his worst to cut you out, I suppose?'

  'Ay--if you will.' Somerset, much against his judgment, was beingstimulated by these pricks into words of irritation. 'Captain De Stancymight, I think, be better employed than in dangling at the heels of alady who can well dispense with his company. And you might be betteremployed than in wasting your wages here.'

  'Wages--a fit word for my money. May I ask you at what stage in theappearance of a man whose way of existence is unknown, his money ceasesto be called wages and begins to be called means?'

  Somerset turned and left him without replying, Dare following hisreceding figure with a look of ripe resentment, not less likely to ventitself in mischief from the want of moral ballast in him who emitted it.He then fixed a nettled and unsatisfied gaze upon the gaming-rooms, andin another minute or two left the Casino also.

  Dare and Somerset met no more that day. The latter returned to Nice bythe evening train and went straight to the hotel. He now thanked hisfortune that he had not precipitately given up his room there, for atelegram from Paula awaited him. His hand almost trembled as he openedit, to read the following few short words, dated from the Grand Hotel,Genoa:--

  'Letter received. Am glad to hear of your journey. We are not returningto Nice, but stay here a week. I direct this at a venture.'

  This tantalizing message--the first breaking of her recent silence--wassaucy, almost cruel, in its dry frigidity. It led him to give up hisidea of following at once to Genoa. That was what she obviously expectedhim to do, and it was possible that his non-arrival might draw a letteror message from her of a sweeter composition than this. That would atleast be the effect of his tardiness if she cared in the least for him;if she did not he could bear the worst. The argument was good enough asfar as it went, but, like many more, failed from the narrowness of itspremises, the contingent intervention of Dare being entirely undreamtof. It was altogether a fatal miscalculation, which cost him dear.

  Passing by the telegraph-office in the Rue Pont-Neuf at an early hourthe next morning he saw Dare coming out from the door. It was Somerset'smomentary impulse to thank Dare for the information given as to Paula'swhereabouts, information which had now proved true. But Dare did notseem to appreciate his friendliness, and after a few words of studiedcivility the young man moved on.

  And well he might. Five minutes before that time he had thrown open agulf of treachery between himself and the architect which nothing inlife could ever close. Before leaving the telegraph-office Dare haddespatched the following message to Paula direct, as a set-off againstwhat he called Somerset's ingratitude for valuable information, thoughit was really the fruit of many passions, motives, and desires:--

  'G. Somerset, Nice, to Miss Power, Grand Hotel, Genoa.

  'Have lost all at Monte Carlo. Have learnt that Captain D. S. returnshere to-morrow. Please send me one hundred pounds by him, and saveme from disgrace. Will await him at eleven o'clock and four, on thePont-Neuf.'