"Am I very fine, Burgess? Because I go where youth and beauty chase the shining hours with flying feet. Oh yes, Burgess, the fair and frail will be present, also the dashing and self-satisfied. And we'll try to make it agreeable all around, won't we? . . . And don't smoke _all_ my most expensive cigars, Burgess. I may want one when I return. I hate to ask too much of you, but you won't mind leaving one swallow of brandy in that decanter, will you? Thanks. Good night, Burgess." "Thank _you_, sir. Good night, sir." As he walked out into the evening air he swung his cane in glittering circles. "Nevertheless," he said under his breath, "she'd better be careful. If she writes again I might lose my head and go to her. You can never tell about some men; and the road to hell is a lonely one--damned lonely. Better let a man travel it like a gentleman if he can. It's more dignified than sliding into it on your back, clutching a handful of lace petticoat." He added: "There's only one hell; and it's hell, perhaps, because there are no women there." CHAPTER VIII Berkley, hollow-eyed, ghastly white, but smiling, glanced at the clock. "Only one more hand after this," he said. "I open it for the limit." "All in," said Cortlandt briefly. "What are you going to do now?" "_Scindere glaciem_," observed Berkley, "you may give me three cards, Cortlandt." He took them, scanned his hand, tossed the discards into the centre of the table, and bet ten dollars. Through the tobacco smoke drifting in level bands, the crystal chandeliers in Cortlandt's house glimmered murkily; the cigar haze even stretched away into the farther room, where, under brilliantly lighted side brackets, a young girl sat playing at the piano, a glass of champagne, gone flat, at her dimpled elbow. Another girl, in a shrimp-pink evening gown, one silken knee drooping over the other, lay half buried among the cushions, singing the air which the player at the piano picked out by ear. A third girl, velvet-eyed and dark of hair, listened pensively, turning the gems on her fingers. The pretty musician at the piano was playing an old song, once much admired by the sentimental; the singer, reclining amid her cushions, sang the words, absently: "Why did I give my heart away-- Give it so lightly, give it to pay For a pleasant dream on a summer's day? "Why did I give? I do not know. Surely the passing years will show. "Why did I give my love away-- Give it in April, give it in May, For a young man's smile on a summer's day? "Why did I love? I do not know. Perhaps the passing years will show. "Why did I give my soul away-- Give it so gaily, give it to pay For a sigh and a kiss on a summer's day? "Perhaps the passing years may show; My heart and I, we do not know." She broke off short, swung on the revolving chair, and called: "Mr. Berkley, _are_ you going to see me home?"