John Bruce paused abruptly before the desk at which he had been writing, and looked at his watch. It was a little after ten o'clock. He was going back to “work” again to-night. He smiled suddenly, and a little quizzically, as he caught sight of himself in a mirror. What would they say--the white-haired negro butler, and the exquisite Monsieur Henri de Lavergne, for instance--when the millionaire plunger, usually so immaculate in evening clothes, presented himself at their door in a suit of business tweeds?
He shrugged his shoulders. Down at Ratti's that night his apparel--it was a matter of viewpoint--had been a source of eminent displeasure, and as such had been very effectively disposed of. He had had no opportunity to be measured for new clothes.
The smile faded, and he stood staring at the desk. The millionaire plunger! It seemed to jar somehow on his sensibilities. Work! That was a queer way, too, to designate it. He was going to take up his work again to-night, pick up the threads of his life again where he had dropped them. A bit ragged those threads, weren't they? Frayed, as it were!
What the devil was the matter with him, anyway?
There was money in it, a princely existence. What more could any one ask? What did Claire, his love for a girl who was glad to marry some one else infinitely worse than he was, have to do with it? Ah, she _did_ have something to do with it, then! Nonsense! It was absurd!
He took a key abruptly from his pocket, and unlocked one of the drawers of the desk. From the drawer he took out a large roll of bills. The hotel management had sent to the bank and cashed a check for him that afternoon. He had not forgotten that he would need money, and plenty of it, at the tables this evening. Well, he was quite ready to go now, and it was time; it would be halfpast ten before he got there, and----
“The devil!” said John Bruce savagely--and suddenly tossed the money back into the drawer, and locked the drawer. “If I don't feel like it to-night, why should I? I guess I'll just drop around for a little convalescent visit, and let it go at that.”
John Bruce put on a light overcoat, and left the room. In the lobby downstairs he posted his letter to Gilbert Larmon. He stepped out on the street, and from the rank in front of the hotel secured a taxi. Twenty minutes later he entered Gilbert Larmon's New York gambling hell.