I had looked forward to spending Christmas with some people in Suffolk, and every one in London assured me that at their house there would be the kind of a Christmas house party you hear about but see only in the illustrated Christmas numbers.They promised mistletoe, snapdragon, and Sir Roger de Coverley.On Christmas morning we would walk to church, after luncheon we would shoot, after dinner we would eat plum pudding floating in blazing brandy, dance with the servants, and listen to the waits singing "God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay."To a lone American bachelor stranded in London it sounded fine.
And in my gratitude I had already shipped to my hostess, for her children, of whose age, number, and sex I was ignorant, half of Gamage's dolls, skees, and cricket bats, and those crackers that, when you pull them, sometimes explode.But it was not to be.Most inconsiderately my wealthiest patient gained sufficient courage to consent to an operation, and in all New York would permit no one to lay violent hands upon him save myself.By cable I advised postponement.Having lived in lawful harmony with his appendix for fifty years, I thought, for one week longer he might safely maintain the status quo.But his cable in reply was an ultimatum.So, on Christmas eve, instead of Hallam Hall and a Yule log, I was in a gale plunging and pitching off the coast of Ireland, and the only log on board was the one the captain kept to himself.
I sat in the smoking-room, depressed and cross, and it must have been on the principle that misery loves company that Iforegathered with Talbot, or rather that Talbot foregathered with me.Certainty, under happier conditions and in haunts of men more crowded, the open-faced manner in which he forced himself upon me would have put me on my guard.But, either out of deference to the holiday spirit, as manifested in the fictitious gayety of our few fellow-passengers, or because the young man in a knowing, impertinent way was most amusing, I listened to him from dinner time until midnight, when the chief officer, hung with snow and icicles, was blown in from the deck and wished all a merry Christmas.
Even after they unmasked Talbot I had neither the heart nor the inclination to turn him down.Indeed, had not some of the passengers testified that I belonged to a different profession, the smoking-room crowd would have quarantined me as his accomplice.On the first night I met him I was not certain whether he was English or giving an imitation.All the outward and visible signs were English, but he told me that, though he had been educated at Oxford and since then had spent most of his years in India, playing polo, he was an American.He seemed to have spent much time, and according to himself much money, at the French watering-places and on the Riviera.I felt sure that it was in France I had already seen him, but where I could not recall.He was hard to place.Of people at home and in London well worth knowing he talked glibly, but in speaking of them he made several slips.It was his taking the trouble to cover up the slips that first made me wonder if his talking about himself was not mere vanity, but had some special object.I felt he was presenting letters of introduction in order that later he might ask a favor.Whether he was leading up to an immediate loan, or in New York would ask for a card to a club, or an introduction to a banker, I could not tell.But in forcing himself upon me, except in self-interest, I could think of no other motive.The next evening I discovered the motive.
He was in the smoking-room playing solitaire, and at once Irecalled that it was at Aix-les-Bains I had first seen him, and that he held a bank at baccarat.When he asked me to sit down Isaid: "I saw you last summer at Aix-les-Bains."His eyes fell to the pack in his hands and apparently searched it for some particular card.
"What was I doing?" he asked.
"Dealing baccarat at the Casino des Fleurs."With obvious relief he laughed.
"Oh, yes," he assented; "jolly place, Aix.But I lost a pot of money there.I'm a rotten hand at cards.Can't win, and can't leave 'em alone." As though for this weakness, so frankly confessed, he begged me to excuse him, he smiled appealingly.
"Poker, bridge, chemin de fer, I like 'em all," he rattled on, "but they don't like me.So I stick to solitaire.It's dull, but cheap." He shuffled the cards clumsily.As though making conversation, he asked: "You care for cards yourself?"I told him truthfully I did not know the difference between a club and a spade and had no curiosity to learn.At this, when he found he had been wasting time on me, I expected him to show some sign of annoyance, even of irritation, but his disappointment struck far deeper.As though I had hurt him physically, he shut his eyes, and when again he opened them I saw in them distress.
For the moment I believe of my presence he was utterly unconscious.His hands lay idle upon the table; like a man facing a crisis, he stared before him.Quite improperly, I felt sorry for him.In me he thought he had found a victim; and that the loss of the few dollars he might have won should so deeply disturb him showed his need was great.Almost at once he abandoned me and I went on deck.When I returned an hour later to the smoking-room he was deep in a game of poker.
As I passed he hailed me gayly.
"Don't scold, now," he laughed; "you know I can't keep away from it."From his manner those at the table might have supposed we were friends of long and happy companionship.I stopped behind his chair, but he thought I had passed, and in reply to one of the players answered: "Known him for years; he's set me right many a time.When I broke my right femur 'chasin,' he got me back in the saddle in six weeks.All my people swear by him."One of the players smiled up at me, and Talbot turned.But his eyes met mine with perfect serenity.He even held up his cards for me to see."What would you draw?" he asked.
His audacity so astonished me that in silence I could only stare at him and walk on.
