It was by his advice that Paulina Durski altered her line of conduct on taking up her abode in England, and refrained altogether from any active share in the ruinous amusements for which men frequented her receptions. "It was all very well for you to take a hand at _écarté_, or to take your place at the _rouge et noir_ table, in Paris," Reginald said, when he discussed this question; "but here it will not do. The English are full of childish prejudices, and to see a woman at the gaming-table would shock these prejudices. Let me play for you. I will find the capital, and we will divide the profits of each night's speculation. For your part, you will have only to look beautiful, and to lure the golden-feathered birds into the net; and sometimes, perhaps, when I am playing _écarté_ with one of your admirers, behind whose chair you may happen to be standing, you may contrive to combine a flattering interest in _his_ play with a substantial benefit to _mine_." Paulina's eyelids fell, and a crimson flush dyed her face: but she uttered no exclamation of anger or disgust. And yet she understood only too well the meaning of Sir Reginald's words. She knew that he wished her to aid him in a deliberate system of cheating. She knew this, and she did not withdraw her friendship from this man. Alas, no! she loved him. Not because she believed him to be good and honourable--not because she was blinded to the baseness of his nature. She loved him in spite of her knowledge of his real character--she yielded to the influence of an infatuation which she was so powerless to resist that she might almost be pardoned for believing herself the victim of a baleful destiny. "It is my fate," she murmured to herself, after this last revelation of her lover's infamy. "It must needs be my fate, since women with less claim to be loved than I possess are so happy as to win the devotion of good and brave men. It is my fate to love a cheat and trickster, on whose constancy I have so poor a hold that a breath may sever the miserable bond that unites us." Victor Carrington was one of the first persons whom Reginald Eversleigh introduced to Madame Durski after her arrival in England. She was pleased with the quiet and graceful manners of the Frenchman; but she was at a loss to understand Sir Reginald's intimate association with a man who was at once poor and obscure. She told Sir Reginald as much the next time she saw him alone. "I know that in most of your friendships convenience and self-interest reign paramount over what you call sentimentality; and yet you choose for your friend this Carrington, whom no one knows; and who is, you tell me, even poorer than yourself. You must have a hidden motive, Reginald; and a strong one." A dark shade passed over the face of the baronet. "I have my reasons," he said. "Victor Carrington was once useful to me--at least he endeavoured to be so. If he failed, the obligation is none the less; and he is a man who will have his bond."