new what was saying or doing about him; he
felt like a man stunned and crushed with the violence of some tremendous
fall; the excitation, the agitation, the angry amazement around
him (growing as near clamor as was possible in those fashionable
betting-circles, so free from roughs and almost free from bookmakers),
the conflicting opinions clashing here and there--even, indeed, the
graceful condolence of the brilliant women--were insupportable to him.
He longed to be out of this world which had so well amused him; he
longed passionately, for the first time in his life, to be alone.

For he knew that with the failure of Forest King had gone the last plank
that saved him from ruin; perhaps the last chance that stood between him
and dishonor. He had never looked on it as within the possibilities of
hazard that the horse could be defeated; now, little as those about him
knew it, an absolute and irremediable disgrace fronted him. For, secure
in the issue of the Prix de Dames, and compelled to weight his chances
in it very heavily that his winnings might be wide enough to relieve
some of the debt-pressure upon him, his losses now were great; and he
knew no more how to raise the moneys to meet them than he would have
known how to raise the dead.

The blow fell with crushing force; the fiercer because his indolence had
persisted in ignoring his danger, and because his whole character was so
naturally careless and so habituated to ease and to enjoyment.

A bitter, heartsick misery fell on him; the tone of honor was high with
him; he might be reckless of everything else, but he could never be
reckless in what infringed, or went nigh to infringe, a very stringent
code. Bertie never reasoned in that way; he simply followed the
instincts of his breeding without analyzing them; but these led him
safely and surely right in all his dealings with his fellow-men, however
open to censure his life might be in other matters. Careless as he was,
and indifferent, to levity, in many things, his ideas of honor were
really very pure and elevated; he suffered proportionately now that,
through the follies of his own imprudence, and the baseness of some
treachery he could neither sift nor avenge, he saw himself driven down
into as close a jeopardy of disgrace as ever befell a man who did not
willfully, and out of guilty coveting of its fruits, seek it.

For the first time in his life the society of his troops of acquaintance
became intolerably op