nce been closed, and
none remained of Rica's guests save the most inveterate gamblers,
who were now assembled in a small room in a secret part of the
establishment, presided over by the host himself.

The persons here met were no bad representatives of the "play world," of
which they formed an important part. They were men, many of them of
the highest rank, who had no other object or pursuit in life than play!
Mingling to a certain extent in public life, they performed before
the world their various parts as soldiers, statesmen, courtiers, or
ambassadors; their thoughts meanwhile travelled but one solitary track.
The only field in which their ambition ranged was the green cloth of the
rouge et noir table. As soldiers they would have lost a battle with
more fortitude than as gamblers they would lose a bet. As statesmen they
would have risked the fate of a kingdom to secure a good "martingale" at
play. Men of highest breeding, in society, abounding in all the graces
that adorn intercourse; here they were taciturn, reserved, almost
morose, never suffering their attention to wander for an instant from
that engrossing theme where gain and loss contended.

Into this society, noiseless and still as stifled feelings and repressed
emotions could make it, Linton entered; a full dress replacing the
clothes he so lately wore, not a trace of unusual agitation on his
features, he seemed in every respect the easy man of fashion for which
the world took him.

A slight nod, a familiar motion of the hand, were all the greetings
which passed between him and such of his acquaintances as deigned to
raise their heads from the game. Linton perceived at once that the play
was high, nor did he need to cast a look at the mountain of gold, the
coinage of every European nation, to know that the "bank" was a winner.
The chief player was a young noble of the king's household, the Duke de
Marsac, a man of originally immense fortune, the greater part of which
he had already squandered at play. His full dress of the Court, for he
had dined the day before at the royal table, contrasted strangely with
the haggard expression of his features, while his powdered hair hung
in stray and dishevelled masses over his temples,--even his deep lace
ruffles, which in his agitation he had torn to very rags,--all bespoke
the abandonment of the loser. Linton, who always passed for a mere
frequenter of the house, unconnected with its interests in any way, saw
at a gl