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 woods; and so we came a dozen times a day by chance across Carolyié's path, or he, by design, across ours.

He lodged at the D'Orange, and could have had no call to pass and repass, as he did, down our avenue; but this he would do, either riding or on foot, continually.

I noticed him at first for his great beauty: people as ugly as I am are sure to note any singular physical perfection. He rode in the steeplechases too, and won; he played recklessly at the tables, and won there also, because he could so well afford to lose; he was sought and adored by many of the elegant and weary women there; he was very rich and very attractive: he was a man, in a word, of whom the world always talked.

I ought to have said ere now that she had her first anger against me—or at least the first she showed—on the score of the gaming-tables. She had urged me with the prettiest and most passionate insistence to try and make my fortune in a night at the roulette-ball. And I had refused always.

I was no better than other men; I did not condemn what they did; but gaming had no charm for me, and it seemed to me that in one who had so little as I it would be utter madness to court ruin by staking that little on the chance of an ivory