Mountjoy, when he reached Captain Vignolles's rooms, was received apparently¹ with great indifference². "I didn't feel at all sure you would come. But there is a bit of supper, if you like to stay. I saw Moody³ this morning, and he said he would look in if he was passing this way. Now sit down and tell me what you have been doing since you disappeared in that remarkable⁴ manner." This was not at all what Mountjoy had expected, but he could only sit down and say that he had done nothing in particular. Of all club men, Captain Vignolles would be the worst with whom to play alone during the entire evening. And Mountjoy remembered now that he had never been inside four walls with Vignolles except at a club. Vignolles regarded him simply as a piece of prey⁵ whom chance had thrown up on the shore. And Moody, who would no doubt show himself before long, was another bird of the same covey, though less rapacious⁶. Mountjoy put his hand up to his breast-pocket, and knew that the fifty pounds was there, but he knew also that it would soon be gone.

Even to him it seemed to be expedient⁷ to get up and at once to go. What delight would there be to him in playing piquet with such a face opposite to him as that of Captain Vignolles, or with such a one as that of old Moody? There could be none of the brilliance⁹ of the room, no pleasant hum of the voices of companions, no sense of his own equality with others. There would be none to sympathize with him when he cursed his ill-luck, there would be no chance of contending with an innocent who would be as reckless as was he himself. He looked round. The room was gloomy and uncomfortable. Captain Vignolles watched him, and was afraid that his prey was about to escape. "Won't you light a cigar?" Mountjoy took the cigar, and then felt that he could not go quite at once. "I suppose you went to Monaco?"

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