Dancing was simply impossible; however, hundreds of couples
went through the form. Phillipa, as in duty bound, remained in the
thick of the _melee_, but Gilly had very early disappeared. He
preferred the card-room; his waltzing days were over, he said. He was
playing; it was not very good taste, but there were some men who
preferred a quiet rubber to looking at princes or the antics of boys
and girls, and he wished to oblige his friends.
"Can you give me a moment, Le Grice?" said Lord Camberwell, coming
into the card-room. "I have had a most extraordinary letter. It
accuses Gilly Jillingham--"
"God bless my soul," cried old Colonel Le Grice, "a letter of the same
sort has been sent to me!"
"Have you had any suspicion that he played unfairly?"
"Not the slightest; I know he always holds the most surprising hands,
that he plays for very high stakes, that he nearly always wins--"
"Is he winning now?"
Of course. Mr. Jillingham's luck never deserted him. He was trying now
perhaps to make at one coup sufficient to silence for a further space
his enemy's tongue; the bets upon the odd trick alone amounted to a
thousand or more. But he was too late. His hour had come.
Suddenly Lord Camberwell spoke in a loud peremptory voice:
"Stop! Mr. Jillingham is cheating. He does it in the deal.
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