He forgot that he was jealous of Cooley and angry with the Countess; he
liked everybody again, especially Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. "Won't you
sit farther forward?" he begged her earnestly; "so that I can see your
beautiful golden hair?"
He heard but dimly the spasmodic uproar that followed. "Laugh on!" he
repeated with a swoop of his arm. "I don't care! Don't you care either,
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.
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