“I have no excuse,” he continued. “It’s not as I had too much to drink. I knew as I sat down at the card table that I could not afford to play.”
“Then – then why – did you do so?” Minerva asked in a very small voice that did not sound like her own.
“The Earl actually asked me,” Tony replied. “There were already five men at the table besides himself and one place empty and, as I was passing to play roulette with some of the women, he said,
“‘Why do you not join us, Linwood?’”
Minerva knew without being told that Tony took it as a compliment that the Earl had asked him.
“I sat down,” Tony said, “and, when I saw the pile of gold coins in front of the other players, I knew that I was completely mad to become involved.”
He gave a sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his being
