But his denial failed to convince her, and as, unusually early, a few
minutes later he left, she realized that she had spent a most unpleasant
evening.

Bince went directly to his club, where he found four other men who were
evidently awaiting him.

"Want to sit in a little game to-night, Harold?" asked one of them.

"Oh, hell," replied Bince, "you fellows have been sitting here all
evening waiting for me. You know I want to. My luck's got to change some
time."

"Sure thing it has," agreed another of the men. "You certainly have
been playing in rotten luck, but when it does change--oh, baby!"

As the five men entered one of the cardrooms several of the inevitable
spectators drew away from the other games and approached their table,
for it was a matter of club gossip that these five played for the
largest stakes of any coterie among the habitues of the card-room.

It was two o'clock in the morning before Bince disgustedly threw his
cards upon the table and rose. There was a nasty expression on his face
and in his mind a thing which he did not dare voice--the final
crystallization of a suspicion that he had long harbored, that his
companions had been for months deliberately fleecing him. Tonight he had
lost five thousand dollars, nor was there a man at the table who did not
hold his I. O. U's. for similar amounts.

"I'm through, absolutely through," he said. "I'll be damned if I ever