"I should much rather be as I am, if I were you, than be gifted with vulgar beauty--plump, pink and white, with black beady eyes, and all that," said Arden. "But the heaviest curse upon me is that which, perhaps, you do not suspect--the curse of--secrecy." "Oh, really!" said Arden, laughing, as if he had thought up to then that Mr. Longcluse's history was as well known as that of the ex-Emperor Napoleon. "I don't say that I shall come out like the enchanted hero in a fairy tale, and change in a moment from a beast into a prince; but I am something better than I seem. In a short time, if you cared to be bored with it, I shall have a great deal to tell you." There followed here a silence of two or three minutes, and then, on a sudden, pathetically, Mr. Longcluse broke forth-- "What has a fellow like me to do with love? and less than beloved, can I ever be happy? I know something of the world--not of this London world, where I live less than I seem to do, and into which I came too late ever to understand it thoroughly--I know something of a greater world, and human nature is the same everywhere. You talk of a girl's pride inducing her to marry a man for the sake of his riches. Could I possess my beloved on those terms? I would rather place a pistol in my mouth, and blow my skull off. Arden, I'm unhappy; I'm the most miserable dog alive." "Come, Longcluse, that's all nonsense. Beauty is no advantage to a man. The being agreeable is an immense one. But success is what women worship, and if, in addition to that, you possess wealth--not, as I said, that they are sordid, but only vain-glorious--you become very nearly irresistible. Now _you_ are agreeable, successful and wealthy--you must see what follows." "I'm out of spirits," said Longcluse, and relapsed into silence, with a great sigh. By this time they had got within the lamps, and were threading streets, and rapidly approaching their destination. Five minutes more, and these gentlemen had entered a vast room, in the centre of which stood a billiard-table, with benches rising tier above tier to the walls, and a gallery running round the building above them, brilliantly lighted, as such places are, and already crowded with all kinds of people. There is going to be a great match of a "thousand up" played between Bill Hood and Bob Markham. The betting has been unusually high; it is still going on. The play won't begin for nearly half an hour. The "admirers of the game" have mustered in great force and variety. There are young peers, with sixty thousand a year, and there are gentlemen who live by their billiards. There are, for once in a way, grave persons, bankers, and counsel learned in the law; there are Jews and a sprinkling of foreigners; and there are members of Parliament and members of the swell mob.