It pleased Lewis to see his companion's face fall, though he was really very fond of him. He smiled, for he knew the secret mania of the Prince, which was to dabble in speculation. The more absurd it was the more it attracted him; Lewis did the same thing, but whereas he was invariably successful, Waldeck was ruining himself. He was always trying to borrow a million francs till next morning. "Personally," answered Lewis, "I always find it easier to make any money I want by myself without employing sleeping partners." Not that Lewis liked either to tease or to deceive people; but between himself and his friends, in spite of their being schoolfellows (he was educated at les Roches and at Winchester), and of their having shared the same youthful pleasures, there always remained the error of his birth. French on his mother's side, Lewis was the natural son of a Belgian banker who died before he left college, leaving him not only very little money but very expensive tastes without anything to satisfy their requirements but a little Jewish blood; or so it was said. He did not remember his mother. Being brought up by servants, he received lessons in self-reliance, cunning and scepticism, which enabled him to understand his position, to suffer from it and to be revenged for it very early in life. He never forgave his companions of his own age for the gulf that separated them. In 1920, the year when amidst many rude awakenings a curious romantic movement in business triumphed, he was precisely what a century before Balzac called "a Banker's Bastard." Waldeck, Montgiscard, Marbot, and Léonardino, were nevertheless sincerely attached to Lewis. They admired him and considered him to have no equal in most fields. Certain people had, out of jealousy, tried to tread in his footsteps; it cost them dear; it was like sheep following a goat on to the ice and falling through owing to their greater weight. Lewis saw a great deal of his friends, or rather, to be accurate, was much sought by them. Did he like them? He would have felt their loss keenly but he could not resist tyrannising over them. It was not that they had ever shown contempt for him, but Lewis wanted to be revenged on the initial injustice of Fate. He was their superior in vitality, intelligence and sexual power, qualities which fife had compelled him to develop at a time when others, either handsomer or richer than he, let these most precious gifts run to seed. He would have put himself out to any extent or faced any danger to render them a service, but, at the same time he liked to feel them at his mercy. He beat them at games and took away their mistresses--had been doing so for at least twelve years--without feeling that honour was quite satisfied by any of these petty revenges. "Waldeck and you, Lewis, that's enough!" "You're fined drinks all round," cried Madame Magnac, to show that it was a bachelor party.