, or to win, but he did as other folks did,
and betted his napoleon and took his luck as it came. He pointed out the
Russians and Spaniards gambling for heaps of gold, and denounced their
eagerness as something sordid and barbarous; an English gentleman should
play where the fashion is play, but should not elate or depress himself
at the sport; and he told how he had seen his friend the Marquis of
Steyne, when Lord Gaunt, lose eighteen thousand at a sitting, and break
the bank three nights running at Paris, without ever showing the least
emotion at his defeat or victory. "And that's what I call being an
English gentleman, Pen, my dear boy," the old gentleman said, warming as
he prattled about his recollections--"what I call the great manner
only remains with us and with a few families in France." And as Russian
Princesses passed him, whose reputation had long ceased to be doubtful,
and damaged English ladies, who are constantly seen in company of
their faithful attendant for the time being in these gay haunts of
dissipation, the old Major, with eager garrulity and mischievous relish,
told his nephew wonderful particulars regarding the lives of these
heroines; and diverted the young man with a thousand scandals. Egad,
he felt himself quite young again, he remarked to Pen, as, rouged
and grinning, her enormous chasseur behind her bearing her shawl,
the Princess Obstropski smiled and recognised and accosted him. He
remembered her in '14 when she was an actress of the Paris Boulevard,
and the Emperor Alexander's aide-de-camp Obstropski (a man of great
talents, who knew a good deal about the Emperor Paul's death, and was a
devil to play) married her. He most courteously and respectfully asked
leave to call upon the Princess, and to present to her his nephew, Mr.
Arthur Pendennis; and he pointed out to the latter a half-dozen of
other personages whose names were as famous, and whose histories were
as satisfying. What would poor Helen have thought, could she have heard
those tales, or known to what kind of people her brother-in-law was
presenting her son? Only once, leaning on Arthur's arm, she had passed
through the room where the green tables were prepared for play, and the
croaking croupiers were calling out their fatal words of Rouge gagne and
Couleur perd. She had shrunk terrified out of the pandemonium, imploring
Pen, extorting from him a promise, on his word of honour, that he would
never play at those tables; and the sce