Vanulm and Mott-Smith in turn added their congratulations to his, and then Gordon touched the bell.
"John," he cried gaily, as the waiter appeared in answer, "will you kindly bring us the oldest, biggest and best magnum of champagne you've got in your cellar? We want to celebrate a great event."
Palmer raised a protesting hand. "Oh, I say, Gordon!" he exclaimed, his face flushing as he spoke, "thank you just as much, but please don't bother. I'm not drinking now. You know I really can't touch the stuff. I--"
Gordon cut him short. "There, there," he said good-humoredly, "I refuse to listen to any such talk as that. On any ordinary occasion I'd say you were perfectly right, but this is the one time in a man's life when a drink is really the only proper thing. It would hardly be fair to the lady, otherwise, Harry."
The appeal to Palmer's pride was successful. "Well," he assented half-doubt fully, "if you really think so, Gordon--perhaps this once--but I'm going to cut the whole thing out, you know," and Gordon's point, as usual, was gained.
Then, while they waited for John's reappearance, a slightly embarrassed silence fell upon them. Mott-Smith was thinking half enviously of a girl he himself knew, and of the difference between his income and Palmer's. Gordon, too, was thinking, not at random, but quickly, daringly and to the point. Vanulm began mechanically to figure up the bridge scores. Then he laughed. "'Unlucky at cards, Harry,'" he quoted. "You're sixty-eight dollars to the bad, I'm out forty-five, and Mott-Smith's plus thirteen. Our friend Gordon must be deucedly unlucky in love, for he's robbed us of an even century."
Gordon laughed again. "Poor consolation," he said. "I think we'll all agree that Harry's the real winner to-night." And then, as John filled the glasses, he added: "Here's to you both, my boy, and may the Goddess of Fortune bring you all the luck you deserve."
The glasses clinked, and were drained dry. Almost at once a subtle change came over Palmer's face. "That's great stuff!" he cried. "You were right, Gordon. I believe you always are. It wouldn't do not to celebrate the occasion. Lots of time afterwards, you know, and all that sort of thing. John, John--" and he tapped at the bell impatiently until the waiter again appeared, "John, your first bottle's all right. Now you want to get us another just like it, and then another just like that, and then you want to stand by for further orders--stand by for first aid to the injured, I mean--what the devil do I mean, anyway?"