He strides about the room a little longer.  It is one o’clock, and he goes down stairs and out of the house.  Still smoking, he passes along Broadway until he reaches Thiel’s.  He hurries up, and finds only a few desperate gamblers.  Abel himself looks a little wild and flushed.  He sits down defiantly and plays recklessly.  The hours are clanged from the belfry of the City Hall.  The lights burn brightly in Thiel’s rooms.  Nobody is sleeping there.  One by one the players drop away—­except those who remark Abel’s game, for that is so careless and furious that it is threatening, threatening, whether he loses or wins.

He loses constantly, but still plays on.  The lights are steady.  His eyes are bright.  The bank is quite ready to stay open for such a run of luck in its favor.

The bell of the City Hall clangs three in the morning as a young man emerges from Thiel’s, and hurries, then saunters, up Broadway.  His motions are fitful, his dress is deranged, and his hair matted.  His face, in the full moonlight, is dogged and dangerous.  It is the Prince of the feast, who had told Grace Plumer that he was perfectly happy.

CHAPTER LI.

A WARNING.

A few evenings afterward, when Abel called to know how the ladies had borne the fatigues of the feast, Mrs. Plumer said, with smiles, that it was a kind of fatigue ladies bore without flinching.  Miss Grace, who was sitting upon a sofa by the side of Sligo Moultrie, said that it was one of the feasts at which young women especially are supposed to be perfectly happy.  She emphasized the last words, and her bright black eyes opened wide upon Mr. Abel Newt, who could not tell if he saw mischievous malice or a secret triumph and sense release in them.

“Oh!” said he, gayly, “it would be too much for me hope to make any ladies, and especially young ladies, perfectly happy.”

And he returned Miss Plumer’s look with a keen glance masked in merriment.

Sligo Moultrie wagged his foot.

“There now is conscious power!” said Abel, with a laugh, as he pointed at Miss Plumer’s companion.

They all laughed, but not very heartily.  There appeared to be some meaning lurking in whatever was said; and like all half-concealed meanings, it seemed, perhaps, even more significant than it really was.

Abel was very brilliant, and told more and better stories than usual.  Mrs. Plumer listened and laughed, and declared that he was certainly the best company she had met for a long time.  Nor were Miss Plumer and Mr. Moultrie reluctant to join the conversation.  In fact, Abel was several times surprised by the uncommon spirit of Sligo’s replies.

“What is it?” said Abel to himself, with a flash of the black eyes that was startling.

All the evening he felt particularly belligerent toward Sligo Moultrie; and yet a close observer would have discovered no occasion in the conduct of the young man for such a feeling upon Abel’s part.  Mr. Moultrie sat quietly by the side of Grace Plumer—­“as if somehow he had a right to sit there,” thought Abel Newt, who resolved to discover if indeed he had a right.