Nothing of this appeared in his face as he accepted Miss Grantham’s invitation to make his bet. E.O. tables held not the slightest lure for him, but since he had come to St James’s Square for the purpose of getting upon easy terms with Miss Grantham, and judged that the quickest way of doing this was to spend as much money as possible in her house, he spent the next half-hour punting recklessly on the spin of the table.

Meanwhile, the dowager at the faro-table, who was Lady Bellingham, had discovered his identity, and was pleasantly fluttered. One of her neighbours informed her that Ravenscar had twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year, but tempered these glad tidings by adding that he was said to have the devil’s own luck at all games of chance. If this were so, it was out tonight. Mr Ravenscar went down to the tune of five hundred guineas in the short time he spent at the E.O. table. While affecting an interest he was far from feeling in the gyrations of the little ball, he had the opportunity he sought of observing Miss Grantham. He was also obliged to observe his cousin’s lover-like attentions to the lady, a spectacle which made him feel physically unwell. Adrian’s frank blue eyes openly adored her; he paid very little attention to anyone else; and his attitude towards Lord Ormskirk reminded Ravenscar strongly of a dog guarding a bone.

Ormskirk seemed faintly amused. Several times he addressed some provocative remark to Adrian, as though he derived a sadistic pleasure from baiting the boy. Several times Adrian seemed to be on the verge of bursting into intemperate speech, but on each such occasion Miss Grantham intervened, turning his lordship’s poisoned rapier aside with considerable deftness, tossing a laughing rejoinder to him, soothing Adrian by a swift, intimate smile which seemed to assure him that between him and her there was a secret understanding which Ormskirk’s sallies could not impair.