"Well, Excellency, there's nobody ever does it but one, so long as I have known Baden."

"And who is he, pray?"

"Mr. Twining,--Adderley Twining, sir; that's the man can just win what and when and how he pleases."

"Don't tell _me_ that, Bauer; _he_ has n't got the secret. If Twining wins, it 's chance,--mere chance, just as you might win."

"It may be so, your Excellency."

"I tell you, Bauer,--I know it as a _fact_,--there's just one man in Europe has the martingale, and here's to his health."

Mr. Bauer was too well skilled in his calling not to guess in whose honor the glass was drained, and smiled a gracious recognition of the toast.

"And your pretty people, Herr Bauer," broke in Lizzy,--"who were your great beauties this season?"

"We had nothing remarkable, Madame," said he, bowing.

"No, Master Bauer," broke in Beecher; "for the luck and the good looks I suspect you should have gone somewhere else this summer."

Bauer bowed his very deepest acknowledgment. Too conscious of what became him in his station to hazard a flattery in words, he was yet courtier enough to convey his admiration by a look of most meaning deference.

"I conclude that the season is nigh over," said Lizzy, half languidly, as she looked out on the moonlit promenade, where a few loungers were lingering.

"Yes, Madame; another week will close the rooms. All are hastening away to their winter quarters,--Rome, Paris, or Vienna."

"How strange it is, all this life of change!" said Lizzy, thoughtfully.

"It is not what it seems," said Beecher; "for the same people are always meeting again and again, now in Italy, now in England. Ah! I see the Cursaal is being lighted up. How jolly it looks through the trees! Look yonder, Lizzy, where all the lamps are glittering. Many a sad night it cost me, gay as it appears."

Mr. Bauer withdrew as the dessert was placed on the table, and they were alone.

"Rich fellow that Bauer," said Beecher; "he lends more money than any Jew in Frankfort. I wonder whether I could n't tempt him to advance me a few hundreds?"

"Do you want money, then?" asked she, unsuspectingly.

"Want it? No, not exactly, except that every one wants it; people always find a way to spend all they can lay their hands on."

"I don't call that wanting it," said she, half coldly.

"Play me something, Lizzy, here's a piano; that Sicilian song,--and sing it." He held out his hand to lead her to the piano, but she only drew her shawl more closely around her, and never moved. "Or, if you like better, that Styrian dance," continued he.

"I am not in the humor," said she, calmly.

"Not in the humor? Well, be in the humor. I was never in better spirits in my life. I would n't change with Davis when he won the Czarewitch.

Such a dinner as old Bauer gave us, and such wine! and then this coffee, not to speak of the company,--eh, Lizzy?"

"Yes, Mr. Bauer was most agreeable."

"I was n't talking of Mr. Bauer, _ma chere_, I was thinking of some one else."

"I did n't know," said she, with a half-weary sigh.

Beecher's cheek flushed up, and he walked to the window and looked out; meanwhile she took up a book and began to read. Along the alley beneath the window troops of people now passed towards the rooms. The hour of play had sounded, and the swell of the band could be heard from the space in front of the Cursaal. As his eyes followed the various groups ascending the steps and disappearing within the building, his imagination pictured the scene inside.

There was always a kind of rush to the tables on the last few nights of the season. It was a sort of gamblers' theory that they were "lucky,"

and Beecher began to con over to himself all the fortunate fellows who had broken the bank in the last week of a season. "I told old Grog I 'd not go," muttered he; "I pledged myself I'd not enter the rooms; but, of course, that meant I 'd not play,--it never contemplated mere looking in and seeing who was there: rather too hard if I were not to amuse myself, particularly when"--here he turned a glance towards Lizzy--"I don't perceive any very great desire to make the evening pass pleasantly here.

Ain't you going to sing?" asked he, half angrily.

"If you wish it," said she, coldly.

"Nor play?" continued he, as though not hearing her reply.

"If you desire it," said she, rising, and taking her place at the piano.

He muttered something, and she began. Her fingers at first strayed in half-careless chords over the instrument; and then, imperceptibly, struck out into a wild, plaintive melody of singular feeling and pathos,--one of those Hungarian airs which, more than any other national music, seem to dispense with words for their expression.

Beecher listened for a few moments, and then, muttering indignantly below his breath, he left the room, banging the door as he went out.

Lizzy did not seem to have noticed his departure, but played on, air succeeding air, of the same character and sentiment; but at last she leaned her head upon the instrument and fell into a deep revery.

The pale moonlight, as it lay upon the polished floor, was not more motionless. Beecher, meanwhile, had issued forth into the street, crossed the little rustic bridge, and held his way towards the Cursaal.

His humor was not an enviable nor an amiable one. It was such a mood as makes a courageous man very dangerous company, but fills an individual of the Beecher type with all that can be imagined of suspicion and distrust. Every thought that crossed his mind was a doubt of somebody or something. He had been duped, cheated, "done," he did n't exactly know when, how, or by whom, with what object, or to what extent. But the fact was so. He entered the rooms and walked towards the play-table. There were many of the old faces he remembered to have seen years ago. He exchanged bows and recognitions with several foreigners whose names he had forgotten, and acknowledged suitably the polite obeisance of the croupiers, as they rose to salute him. It was an interesting moment as he entered, and the whole table were intently watching the game of one player, whose single Louis d'or had gone on doubling with each deal, till it had swelled into a sum that formed the limit of the bank. Even the croupiers, models as they are of impassive serenity, showed a touch of human sentiment as the deal began, and seemed to feel that they were in presence of one who stood higher in Fortune's favor than themselves.

"Won again!" cried out a number of voices; "the thirteenth pass! Who ever saw the like? It is fabulous, monstrous!" Amid the din of incessant commentaries, few of them uttered in the tone of felicitation, a very tall man stretched his arm towards the table, and began to gather in the gold, saying, in a pleasant but hurried voice: "A thousand pardons. I hope you 'll excuse me; would n't inconvenience you for worlds. I think you said"--this was to the banker--"I think you said thirty-eight thousand francs in all; thank you, extremely obliged; a very great run of luck, indeed,--never saw the like before. Would you kindly exchange that note, it is a Frankfort one; quite distressed to give you the trouble; infinitely grateful;" and, bashfully sweeping the glittering coins into his hat, as if ashamed to have interrupted the game, he retired to a side table to count over his winnings. He had just completed a little avenue of gold columns, muttering to himself little congratulations, interspersed with "What fun!" when Beecher, stepping up, accosted him. "The old story, Twining! I never heard nor read of a fellow with such luck as yours!"

[Illustration: 311]

"Oh, very good luck, capital luck!" cried Twining, rubbing his lean hands, and then slapping them against his leaner legs. "As your Lordship observes, I do occasionally win; not always, not always, but occasionally. Charmed to see you here,--delighted,--what fun!

Late,--somewhat late in the season,--but still lovely weather. Your Lordship only just arrived, I suppose?"

"I see you don't remember me, Twining," said Beecher, smiling, and rather amused to mark how completely his good fortune had absorbed his attention.

"Impossible, my Lord-!--never forget a face,--never!"

"Pardon me if I must correct you this once; but it is quite clear you _have_ forgotten me. Come, for whom do you take me?"

"Take you, my Lord,--take you? Quite shocked if I could make a blunder; but really, I feel certain I am speaking with Lord Lackington."

"There, I knew it!" cried Beecher, laughing out "I knew it, though, by Jove! I was not quite prepared to hear that I looked so old. You know he's about eighteen years my senior."

"So he was, my Lord,--so he was," said Twining, gathering up his gold.

"And for a moment, I own, I was disposed to distrust my eyes, not seeing your Lordship in mourning."

"In mourning? and for whom?"

"For the late Viscount, your Lordship's brother!"

"Lackington! Is Lackington dead?"

"Why, it's not possible your Lordship hasn't heard it? It cannot be that your letters have not brought you the tidings? It happened six--ay, seven weeks ago; and I know that her Ladyship wrote, urgently entreating you to come out to Italy." Twining continued to detail, in his own peculiar and fitful style, various circumstances about Lord Lackington's last illness. But Beecher never heard a word of it, but stood stunned and stupefied by the news. It would be too tangled a web were we to inquire into the complicated and confused emotions which then swayed his heart. The immense change in his own fortunes, his sudden accession to rank, wealth, and station, came, accompanied by traits of brotherly love and affection bestowed on him long, long ago, when he was a Harrow boy, and "Lack" came down to see him; and then, in after life, the many kind things he had done for him,--helping him out of this or that difficulty,--services little estimated at the time, but now remembered with more than mere gratitude. "Poor Lackington! and that I should not haver been with you!" muttered he; and then, as if the very words had set another chord in vibration, he started as he thought that he had been duped. Davis knew it all; Davis had intercepted the letters. It was for this he had detained him weeks long in the lonely isolation of that Rhenish village. It was for this his whole manner had undergone such a marked change to him. Hence the trustfulness with which he burned the forged acceptances; the liberality with which he supplied him with money, and then--the marriage! "How they have done me!" cried he, in an agony of bitterness,--"how they have done me! The whole thing was concerted,--a plant from the very beginning; and _she_ was in it!" While he thus continued to mutter to himself imprecations upon his own folly, Twining led him away, and imperceptibly induced him to stroll along one of the unfrequented alleys. At first Beecher's questions were all about his brother's illness,--how it began, what they called it, how it progressed. Then he asked after his sister-in-law,--where she then was, and how. By degrees he adverted to Lackington's affairs; his will,--what he had left, and to whom. Twining was one of the executors, and could tell him everything. The Viscount had provided handsomely, not extravagantly, for his widow, and left everything to his brother! "Poor Lackington, I knew he loved me always!" Twining entered into a somewhat complicated narrative of a purchase the late Viscount had made, or intended to make, in Ireland,--an encumbered estate,--but Beecher paid no attention to the narrative. All his thoughts were centred upon his own position, and how Davis had done him.