“And you shouldn’t,” said Claude, shaking his head, “pay so much attention to what Nelly says. She makes herself out a martyr now; but she was quite willing to marry Winterbourn. She was quite pleased. It was a great match; and now she is going to get the good of it.” “If being very unhappy is getting the good of it----!” “Oh, unhappy!” said Claude. It was evident he held Mrs Winterbourn’s unhappiness lightly enough. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “talking of unhappiness, I saw another friend of yours the other day who was unhappy, if you like--that young soldier-fellow, the Indian man. What do you call him?--Grant? No; that’s a Nile man. Gaunt. Now, if Lady Markham had taken him in hand----” “Captain Gaunt!” said Frances, in alarm; “what has happened to him, Mr Ramsay? Is he ill? Is he----” Her face flushed with anxiety, and then grew pale. “I can’t say exactly,” said Claude, “for I am not in his confidence; but I should say he had lost his money, or something of that sort. I don’t frequent those sort of places in a general way; but sometimes, if I’ve been out in the evening, if there’s no east in the wind, and no rain or fog, I just look in for a moment. I rather think some of those fellows had been punishing that poor innocent Indian man. When a stranger comes among them, that’s a way they have. One feels dreadfully sorry for the man; but what can you do?” “What can you do? Oh, anything, rather than stand by,” cried Frances, excited by sudden fears, “and see--and see---- I don’t know what you mean, Mr Ramsay! Is it _gambling_? Is that what you mean?” “You should speak to Markham,” he replied. “Markham’s deep in all that sort of thing. If anybody could interfere, it would be Markham. But I don’t see how even he could interfere. He is not the fellow’s keeper; and what could he say? The other fellows are gentlemen; they don’t cheat, or that sort of thing. Only, when a man has not much money, or has not the heart to lose it like a man----” “Mr Ramsay, you don’t know anything about Captain Gaunt,” cried Frances, with hot indignation and excitement. “I don’t understand what you mean. He has the heart for--whatever he may have to do. He is not like you people, who talk about everybody, who know everybody. But he has been in action; he has distinguished himself; he is not a nobody like----” “You mean me,” said Claude. “So far as being in action goes, I am a nobody of course. But I hope, if I went in for play and that sort of thing, I would bear my losses without looking as ghastly as a skeleton. That is where a man of the world, however little you may think of us, has the better of people out of Society. But I have nothing to do with his losses. I only tell you, so that, if you can do anything to get hold of him, to keep him from going to the bad----”