Mrs. Mount-Rhyswicke. Please sit where I can see your beautiful golden
hair. Don't be afraid I'll kiss you again. I wouldn't do it for the
whole world. You're one of the noblest women I ever knew. I feel that's
true. I don't know how I know it, but I know it. Let 'em laugh!"

After this everything grew more and more hazy to him. For a time there
was, in the centre of the haze, a nimbus of light which revealed his
cards to him and the towers of chips which he constantly called for and
which as constantly disappeared--like the towers of a castle in Spain.
Then the haze thickened, and the one thing clear to him was a phrase
from an old-time novel he had read long ago:

"Debt of honor."

The three words appeared to be written in flames against a background of
dense fog. A debt of honor was as promissory note which had to be
paid on Monday, and the appeal to the obdurate grandfather--a peer of
England, the Earl of Mount-Rhyswicke, in fact--was made at midnight,
Sunday. The fog grew still denser, lifted for a moment while he wrote
his name many times on slips of blue paper; closed down once more, and
again lifted--out-of-doors this time--to show him a lunatic ballet of
moons dancing streakily upon the horizon.

He heard himself say quite clearly, "All right, old man, thank you;
but don't bother about me," to a pallid but humorous Cooley in evening
clothes; the fog thickened; oblivion closed upon him for a seeming
second....