“However”—­he turned on his heel—­“suppose we try a few other trifles first.  What time? those fellows won’t have gone to bed yet!”

He took out his watch, then extinguished his candles, and made his way to the street.  A hundred yards or so away from his own door he stopped before a well-known fashionable club, extremely small, and extremely select, where his mother’s brother, the peer of the family, had introduced him when he was young and tender, and his mother’s relations still cherished hopes of snatching him as a brand from the burning.

The front rooms of the club were tolerably full still.  He passed on to the back.  A door-keeper stationed in the passage stepped back and silently opened a door.  It closed instantly behind him, and Wharton found himself in a room with some twenty other young fellows playing baccarat, piles of shining money on the tables, the electric lamps hung over each, lighting every detail of the scene with the same searching disenchanting glare.

“I say!” cried a young dark-haired fellow, like a dishevelled Lord Byron.  “Here comes the Labour leader—­make room!”

And amid laughter and chaffing he was drawn down to the baccarat table, where a new deal was just beginning.  He felt in his pockets for money; his eyes, intent and shining, followed every motion of the dealer’s hand.  For three years now, ever since his return from his travels, the gambler’s passion had been stealing on him.  Already this season he had lost and won—­on the whole lost—­large sums.  And the fact was—­so far—­absolutely unknown except to the men with whom he played in this room.

CHAPTER III.

“If yer goin’ downstairs, Nuss, you’d better take that there scuttle with yer, for the coals is gittin’ low an’ it ull save yer a journey!”

Marcella looked with amusement at her adviser—­a small bandy-legged boy in shirt and knickerbockers, with black Jewish eyes in a strongly featured face.  He stood leaning on the broom he had just been wielding, his sleeves rolled up to the shoulder showing his tiny arms; his expression sharp and keen as a hawk’s.

“Well, Benny, then you look after your mother while I’m gone, and don’t let any one in but the doctor.”

And Marcella turned for an instant towards the bed whereon lay a sick woman too feeble apparently to speak or move.

“I aint a goin’ ter,” said the boy, shortly, beginning to sweep again with energy, “an’ if this ’ere baby cries, give it the bottle, I s’pose?”

“No, certainly not,” said Marcella, firmly; “it has just had one.  You sweep away, Benny, and let the baby alone.”

Benny looked a trifle wounded, but recovered himself immediately, and ran a general’s eye over Marcella who was just about to leave the room.

“Now look ’ere, Nuss,” he said in a tone of pitying remonstrance, “yer never a goin’ down to that ’ere coal cellar without a light.  Yer’ll ’ave to come runnin’ up all them stairs again—­sure as I’m alive yer will!”