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“You mean because I’m beastly rich?”

“Rich,” I amended.

“All depends on what you call rich. Besides, I’m not the sort of fellow who’s content with three per cent. A couple of months ago–I tell you this in confidence–I risked virtually all I had in an Argentine deal.”

“And lost it?”

“No; as a matter of fact, I made rather a good thing out of it. I did rather well last February, too. But there’s no knowing the future. A few errors of judgment, a war here, a revolution there, a big strike somewhere else, and–” He blew a jet of smoke from his lips, and then looked at me as at one whom he could trust to feel for him in a crash already come.

My sympathy lagged, and I stuck to the point of my inquiry.

“Meanwhile,” I suggested, “and all the more because you aren’t merely a rich man, but also an active taker of big risks, how can these tiny little baccarat risks give you so much emotion?”

“There you rather have me,” he laughed. “I’ve often wondered at that myself. I suppose,” he puzzled it out, “I do a good lot of make-believe. While I’m playing a game like this game to-night, I IMAGINE the stakes are huge. And I IMAGINE I haven’t another penny in the world.”

“Ah, so that with you it’s always a life-and-death affair?”

He looked away.

“Oh, no, I don’t say that.”

“Stupid phrase,” I admitted. “But”–there was yet one point I would put to him–“if you have extraordinary luck always–“

“There’s no such thing as luck.”

“No, strictly, I suppose, there isn’t. But if in point of fact you always do win, then–well, surely, perfect luck driveth out fear.”

“Who ever said I always won?” he asked sharply.

I waved my hands and said, “Oh, you have the reputation, you know, for extraordinary luck.”

“That isn’t the same thing as always winning. Besides, I HAVEN’T extraordinary luck, never HAVE had. Good heavens!” he exclaimed, “if I thought I had any more chance of winning than of losing, I’d–I’d–“

“Never again set foot in that baccarat-room to-night,” I soothingly suggested.

“Oh, baccarat be blowed! I wasn’t thinking of baccarat. I was thinking of–oh, lots of things; baccarat included, yes.”

“What things?” I ventured to ask.

“What things?” He pushed back his chair. “Look here,” he said with a laugh, “don’t pretend I haven’t been boring your head off with all this talk about myself. You’ve been too patient. I’m off. Shall I see you to-morrow? Perhaps you’d lunch with us to-morrow? It would be a great pleasure for my wife. We’re at the Grand Hotel.”

I said I should be most happy, and called the waiter; at sight of whom my friend said he had talked himself thirsty, and asked for another glass of water. He mentioned that he had brought his car over with him: his little daughter (by the news of whose existence I felt idiotically surprised) was very keen on motoring, and they were all three starting the day after to-morrow on a little tour through France. Afterward they were going on to Switzerland “for some climbing.” Did I care about motoring? If so, we might go for a spin after luncheon, to Rouen or somewhere. He drank his glass of water, and, linking a friendly arm in mine, passed out with me into the corridor. He asked what I was writing now, and said that he looked to me to “do something big one of these days,” and that he was sure I had it in me. This remark, though of course I pretended to be pleased by it, irritated me very much. It was destined, as you shall see, to irritate me very much more in recollection.

Yet I was glad he had asked me to luncheon–glad because I liked him and glad because I dislike mysteries. Though you may think me very dense for not having thoroughly understood Pethel in the course of my first meeting with him, the fact is that I was only aware, and that dimly, of something more in him than he had cared to reveal–some veil behind which perhaps lurked his right to the title so airily bestowed on him by Grierson. I assured myself, as I walked home, that if veil there was, I should to-morrow find an eyelet. But one’s intuition when it is off duty seems always a much more powerful engine than it does on active service; and next day, at sight of Pethel awaiting me outside his hotel, I became less confident. His, thought I, was a face which, for all its animation, would tell nothing–nothing, at any rate, that mattered. It expressed well enough that he was pleased to see me; but for the rest I was reminded that it had a sort of frank inscrutability. Besides, it was at all points so very usual a face–a face that couldn’t (so I then thought), even if it had leave to, betray connection with a “great character.” It was a strong face, certainly; but so are yours and mine.