The Vicomte pushed back his chair and gently snuffed the candles. His face displayed no emotion. Then after a while he said, “That completes the play. Your revenge has been a costly one, my friend.”
“My revenge has been a costly one,” answered Carew; “there remains but one thing more.”
“To send my life after my houses and lands. There is nothing more left.”
“Bah! you are but a fool; I have gone the same way myself. With a light heart I have lost more in a night than would buy your barren acres three times over. I, who was already a pauper, have staked my mistress, my buckles, my rings, nay, my very peruke itself and lost them too. And I did not complain. I had my sword and my honour, and could wait on fortune with a cheerful mind. I laughed at misfortune.”
“Oh! ´tis very well for you to talk thus,” cried Carew moodily, “with the first estate in the country in your pocket--a rare exchange for your castles in Spain.”
“Monsieur Carew will remember that I did not press him to play. He who tempts the fortunes of the hazard should learn to bear his loss with equanimity. One should bear misfortune like a gentleman.”
“I will have no sermons, my lord; ´tis enough that you should have stripped me of every rood of my land and every doit that I could raise, without presuming to lecture me on deportment. I would have you know that I will follow my own manner. I find no fault with you--´tis my own accursed folly that has made my heirship of the briefest, and left me a beggar before I had entered on my inheritance.”
“Play is an admirable moralist,” said De Laprade, altering the position of the candlesticks, "and preaches excellent homilies. You have had three weeks in the society of the coyest mistress in the world, and now you grudge the tavern charges.
‘Je crois Jeanneton, Aussi douce que belle; Je crois Jeanneton Plus douce qu‘un--mouton.´"
“In good faith I do not think I am. Sit down, Carew, and let us look the matter in the face as sensible men should. I have no wish to put your money in my pocket or act the country squire on your beggarly paternal fields, but my ears are for ever itching for the pleasant rattle of the dice-board, and I thirst for the sight of a royal hand at cards. Fortune, which hath hitherto treated me so scurvily, hath taken a turn at last, and I am richer by some thousands than when I landed in your island with nothing in the world but a sword and two portmanteaux. For that, I am wholly indifferent, and will stake my new possessions as readily as I threw away my old. I am sorry for you, but I do not think you would take back what you have lost as a gift, even if I offered it now.”