Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/16

4 card might have been dropped by accident, and he might not have noticed what had happened. And, anyhow, in face of the fact that I had been with the man on terms of intimacy, and had never before had cause to suspect him of anything in the least dishonourable, having regard to his explicit denial, it was a delicate position to persist in. I got up from my chair, conceding the point.

"That makes eighteen hundred and eighty pounds you owe me. My sympathy, Ferguson; better luck next time."

I mentally resolved that I would not play cards again with Edwin Lawrence—at any rate, when we two were alone.

I was in a curious state of mind when I returned to my own chambers. The events of the evening buzzed in my head. It was not the money merely. Though I am very far from being a millionaire, and two thousand pounds, less one hundred and twenty, is not a sum to be lightly thrown away. The inquiry kept knocking at my brain—was the man whom already I was beginning to regard as a friend such a very poor creature after all? Was it possible that he had wilfully manipulated those figures to his own advantage, and, with intention, dropped that card? The more closely I followed the events of the evening, the less I liked the conclusion to which they led me.