ust win to pay for the croupiers and keep the place going,"
I said.

"In my opinion there is no acute necessity for the place to be kept
going, as you express it. I entertain a hope that if you have ever
taken part in that orgie, at which every one with the exception of the
croupiers looks greedy and hungry, that you will in the future abstain
from it. Gambling is the meanest of all vices," he said slowly, and he
tapped my arm seven times.

He did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and as I cannot
bear anybody tapping at me, I thought Nina might help to calm him. So
I walked down the terrace and introduced her to him suddenly, for he
had a reputation for bolting from strange ladies, and I thought it best
to leave nothing to chance. But as soon as he saw Nina the cloud
disappeared from his face, and his aggressively moral mood changed. In
fact I distinctly heard him say "delightful," though I am sure that he
did not intend his remark to be audible. He inspected Nina as if she
was for sale or on show, but he so clearly approved of her that she did
not seem to mind him.

"Won't you sit down?" she said.

"Only on one condition," he answered.

"What is it?"

"That you tell me the name of your dressmaker," but before Nina could
speak he had settled himself beside her, and continued: "You are not
only successful in being cool but also in looking cool; now I have ten
nieces, delightful girls, but they cannot take exercise without
rivalling the colour of a peony. They look what I can only describe to
you as full-blown."

"But I have not been taking exercise," Nina said.

"That, I suppose, is true," he replied, and forgot promptly what he had
been talking about.

After a minute's silence his head began to sink forward, and I was
afraid he was beginning to think hard or go to sleep, so I told Nina
that it was time for us to go back to the hotel; for much as I liked
the Warden I had no wish to watch over him while he slept on the
Terrace of the Casino, and I thought that he might expect to find me
there when he woke up. Nina held out her hand to wish him good-bye,
but he said that he was coming with us, and while we were walking to
the hotel I left him to her, for I was debating whether I had better
ask him to meet my father and mother or not. I knew that he had
offended a great many people who had come to see him in Oxford about
their sons, and he was reported to have said that the greatest
difficul