There were a few late _habitués_ in the room. One of these, a dry, long man, with a face like a puckered medlar and a short-sighted contraction of the eyelids, had been . for some time a stealthily intent observer of the quartette. Now this individual, humouring a habit of his by drawing in his breath with a wincing sound, gave his chair a shift, and seemed to be awaiting results, at a distance, with some secret interest. “Stake, and have done with it!” cried Sir Robert boisterously to the young lord. The latter turned an insolent, languid glance on Major Dalrymple. They were a contrast. The soldier set, spare, bilious, with a great hooked nose and cracked heavy lips; the other a ruffled _petit-maître_ of the first folly, pearl-powdered, cherry-mouthed, a model of sartorial elegance from his choking cravat--so amplified as that his face looked like a peach stuck in a napkin--to his full pantaloons of apricot-coloured velvet. “I stake,” lisped this exquisite--“I stake your reversion, sir.” There were influences of wine and ill-fortune fermenting in the fool’s empty head. Otherwise he would have hardly dared such perilous banter. “I fail to gather your lordship,” said the soldier, going red. “The adorable Carminelle,” began the Viscount drawlingly, when the other jumped up with a furious face, upsetting his chair in the act, and clapped his left hand instinctively upon his thigh. There was a moment’s commotion. One or two in the room rose; but the dry, short-sighted stranger sat on, quietly rubbing his chin. Nonplussed for the moment, as it seemed, by the absence of his weapon, Major Dalrymple gasped, hesitated--and sat down again. As he did so, some were aware of a blue streak across his forehead that remained there after his flush of passion had subsided. “I stake a thousand pounds against that,” he said, with a sudden fall to intense quietness of intonation. The incident passed, and the deal. There was a stern spirit of expectancy in the room. This was not “Whitelaw’s” way--either as regarded the outburst, or the nature of the declaration that had produced it. Then, all in a moment, Sir Robert Linne had leaped up and flung his cards in Mr. Ladislaw’s face, and the major was on his feet again, stamping and declaiming. The baronet’s victim, taken completely by surprise, started and fell over on his back, his chair splintering beneath him. The place was in an uproar at once--red and angry visages on all sides. Only Sir Robert stood placid with folded arms, smiling grimly down on the havoc he had wrought.