"I understand perfectly," said the Prince, "what you mean by painful and cherished remembrances. You have been an unfortunate lover, and the card brought to your recollection the image of the lost fair one; though, begging your pardon, Mr Leonard, when I think of the pale complexion and flat features of your favourite Queen, this seems not a little capricious. However, you thought on your lost mistress, and in that game of pharo, she was perhaps more true and faithful than she had been in real life. But what you are able to discover in all this that is horrible and frightful, I cannot possibly conceive. On the contrary, you should rejoice that Fortune, even on any grounds, is so much inclined to favour you. Besides, if you are really vexed, this is not to be imputed to the pharo-table, but to the individual moods, the idiosyncrasies of your own mind." "All that your highness has stated," said I, "may be perfectly correct; but I feel deeply that it is not merely the fear of loss on which my present dislike to gaming is founded. Gain itself, which only brings us more and more under a state of slavery to a mysterious fate, which would one day lead us to destruction, is equally dangerous. Yet, sire, I confess that I was yesterday on the point of seeing my travelling exchequer completely drained, which, considering my present distance from home, would have been to me no slight misfortune." "Nay," said the Prince, "I should have infallibly learned this occurrence, and would have taken care that the loss should have been to you threefold repaid, for I certainly do not choose that any one should be ruined, in order to contribute to my amusement. Besides, any real evil of this kind cannot happen under my roof, for I know my players, and do not trust them out of my own sight." "Yet, with submission," said I, "may not these very precautions take away all that freedom from the player, and thereby annihilate those fine involvements of chance, in which your highness takes delight? Or may not some individual, on whom the passion for play has violently seized, break out of such trammels, and rush on, unobserved, to his own destruction? Forgive my candour, sire. I believe also, that those very methods which your highness would adopt to prevent evil consequences, would, from the perverse nature of mankind, be looked upon by many as a disgusting and intolerable restraint." "Say no more, Mr Leonard," said the Prince, "it is obvious, that from every opinion or idea of mine you are resolved to dissent." With these words he hastily retired, adding only an unceremonious and careless "adieu." CHAPTER XXVII.