days, and I owe a card debt of over two pounds."

"Yes?" commented Elaine dryly and with an apparent lack of interest
in his exchequer statement. Surely, she was thinking hurriedly to
herself, he could not be foolish enough to broach the matter of
another loan.

"The card debt is rather a nuisance," pursued Comus, with
fatalistic persistency.

"You won seven pounds last week, didn't you?" asked Elaine; "don't
you put by any of your winnings to balance losses?"

"The four shillings and the fivepence and the half-penny represent
the rearguard of the seven pounds," said Comus; "the rest have
fallen by the way. If I can pay the two pounds to-day I daresay I
shall win something more to go on with; I'm holding rather good
cards just now. But if I can't pay it of course I shan't show up
at the club. So you see the fix I am in."

Elaine took no notice of this indirect application. The Appeal
Court was assembling in haste to consider new evidence, and this
time there was the rapidity of sudden determination about its
movement.

The conversation strayed away from the fateful topic for a few
moments and then Comus brought it deliberately back to the danger
zone.

"It would be awfully nice if you would let me have a fiver for a