‘Well, leave a little for me,’ cried Nora gaily, and her husband’s answer should have at least satisfied her that she would always be his first care. But she was not satisfied with regard to the nightly games of cards. She watched the players more closely after this conversation than before, and decided within herself that she had been correct, and Jack Portland was by far the heaviest and most frequent winner. One day, when they were alone together, she could not help congratulating him, in a sarcastic manner, on his continual run of good luck. He guessed at her meaning in a minute. ‘Do you mean to infer that I cheat?’ he asked her abruptly. Then Nora felt a little ashamed of herself and did not know what to reply. ‘Oh, no, of course not. How could you think of such a thing? Only it is evident that you are a far better player than Lord Babbage or Ilfracombe, and, to my mind, the odds are very much against them. As for poor me, you have ruined me already. I have lost all my pin-money for the next three months.’ ‘Nonsense!’ he said rudely (Mr Portland could be exceedingly rude to her when they were alone), ‘you know you can get as much money out of Ilfracombe as you can possibly want. The man is infatuated with you. More fool he. But he’ll find out how much your love is worth some day.’ ‘Perhaps you intend to enlighten him?’ said her ladyship. She could not resist letting fly her little shafts at him, whatever the consequences might be. ‘Perhaps I do, if you egg me on to it,’ was Mr Portland’s reply. ‘But, seriously, my lady, don’t you attempt to come between his lordship and myself, or you may rue the day you did it. I am a _vaurien_--adventurer--swindler--what you like. I’m not afraid of you or your tongue, because I hold the trump card and should have no hesitation in playing it. But my income, though tolerably expansive, is a fluctuating one, and I am compelled to eke it out as best I can. I amuse my friends, and I live chiefly at their expense. Lord Ilfracombe is, luckily for me, one of my best and greatest of chums, so I cling to him like a double-sweet pea. Until you came in the way there has never been a suspicion cast on the honour of my intentions--the disinterestedness of my friendship. See that you don’t do it, that’s all.’ ‘And what if I did?’ asked Nora, defiantly, with her head well up in the air. Mr Portland moved a few steps closer to her. ‘I would deliver those letters of yours into Ilfracombe’s hands within the hour,’ he said, between his teeth. Nora quailed before his glance, but her voice was steady as she replied,-- ‘You would not. You _dare_ not. You would ruin yourself for ever, and be pointed at in Society as a scoundrel and a black-mailer.’ ‘Never mind what the world would say of me. Think only of what it would say of _you_.’