VOLUME II.

CHAPTER XIX.

Alea sequa vorax species certissima furti
Non contenta bonis, animum quoque perfida mergit;--
Furca, furax--infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina.
Petrarch: Dial.

I dined the next day at the Freres Provencaux; an excellent
restaurateur's, by-the-by, where one gets irreproachable gibier, and
meets no English. After dinner, I strolled into the various gambling
houses, with which the Palais Royal abounds.

In one of these, the crowd and heat were so great, that I should
immediately have retired if I had not been struck with the extreme and
intense expression of interest in the countenance of one of the
spectators at the rouge et noir table. He was a man about forty years of
age; his complexion was dark and sallow; the features prominent, and what
are generally called handsome; but there was a certain sinister
expression in his eyes and mouth, which rendered the effect of his
physiognomy rather disagreeable than prepossessing. At a small distance
from him, and playing, with an air which, in its carelessness and
nonchalance, formed a remarkable contrast to the painful anxiety of the
man I have just described, sate Mr. Thornton.

At first sight, these two appeared to be the only Englishmen present
besides myself; I was more struck by seeing the former in that scene,
than I was at meeting Thornton there; for there was something distingue
in the mien of the stranger, which suited far worse with the appearance