Arthur bent over his glass with something like a frown on his young brow; then holding his wine up between his eye and the light, he shook it slowly, and watched the ruddy reflection playing on his hand.

"Didn't I hear you ask if Clinton had been here, Quirk?"

"Aye, just so."

"Does he frequent this place?"

"Well, between you and me, he does."

"Does he use these?" said Arthur, lifting a few of the cards, and letting them fall slowly through his fingers.

"Well, sometimes he does one thing, sometimes another; you see this is a very extensive establishment, and sometimes he drinks in the saloon, sometimes gambles in here, and sometimes passes the evening up stairs with the ladies, and occasionally does all in the course of an evening.

He's a fine fellow, I tell you; a fast un, though."

"What ladies are in the house, the family of the man out yonder?"

"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Quirk, uproariously; "what a prime innocent it is, though. Why, my boy, this is one of the fashionable establishments of the city."

A glow of shame crossed Arthur's cheek, as the truth flashed upon his mind, and dashing his glass angrily down, blushing at the thought of being led into such a place, he was about to pass out of the door.

"Why, hold on, Pratt; have you forgotten what you came here for? You haven't told me a word of what you were going to."

"Nor shall I in this hole," returned Arthur, laying his hand upon the door-key; "if you want to hear it you must get out of here."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Quirk, trying to detain him; "hold on till we finish this bottle."

"Not I," replied Arthur, "I've had enough;" and dashing open the door, he rushed against the trim figure of Clinton, who was just about to enter.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Fate is above us all; We struggle, but what matters our endeavor?

Our doom is gone beyond our own recall; May we deny or mitigate it? Never!"

Miss Landon.

"Whither so fast, whither so fast!" cried Clinton, so cheerfully, as he laid both hands on Arthur's shoulders, and playfully detained him, that he could not answer the speaker with a frown; so, holding out his hand, he shook that of the new comer heartily, and suffered himself to be led back into the card-room.

"If you hadn't have come just as you did, Clin, this chap would have been off like a shot from a shovel, his young modesty was so shocked just by my telling him the state of affairs in the house here," said Quirk, tipping back in his chair against the wall, while a sneer mingled in the smile upon his lips.

"Well, if he isn't used to such things, I don't wonder," returned Clinton, drawing Arthur to a seat by his side, and squeezing cordially the hand he still held.

"You're a pretty one to side that way," said Quirk, half angry at Clinton's remark. "If he ain't used to such things, it's time he was initiated, if he ever expects to be a man."

"Time enough, time enough," replied Clinton, good-naturedly, shaking the bottle to see if there was anything left in it, then touching a table-bell at his side, he summoned Quibbles.

"A couple of bottles of champagne here, and clean glasses."

They were brought instantly.

"How came you to drop in here, boys, to-night? I declare it is an unexpected pleasure."

"Pratt had something on his mind, and came in here to tell me of it; but he got so d----d huffy, I don't suppose I shall hear it now."

"Something on your mind, eh, Pratt?" said Clinton, in a commiserating tone, as he filled Arthur's glass, and shoved the bottle to Quirk; "if so, here's to the end of it."

They touched glasses, and drank off the sparkling draught.

"Now for the story, whatever it is!" cried Clinton.

"It is no story, only a little affair that happened after I left you this afternoon," returned Arthur.

"Indeed! after you left me! I am all impatience, my dear fellow, let's hear."

In as few words as possible, dwelling as lightly as he could on what Mr.

Delancey had said to him, Arthur told it all as it had happened, his companions listening attentively meanwhile.

"Why, my dear soul!" cried Clinton, clapping his hand on Arthur's shoulder, as he finished speaking, "your pocket must have been picked.

There's always a crowd in the street at that time of day, and somebody has just been cute enough to rob you."

"So Mr. Delancey thought, and he said probably you did it," returned Arthur, though in the tone of one who tells what he feels assured is false.

"The deuce he did!" exclaimed Clinton, filling the glasses again, and holding up his own to conceal the flush upon his face.

"Well, it's too bad anyhow," said Quirk, with returning good nature.

"You don't get any credit for honesty, and have to bear the loss besides--outrageous!"

"How did the old man know anything about me?" said Clinton, with an indifferent air; "I'll have to call him out, if he touches upon my character in this style."

Quirk laughed, and Arthur hastened to explain to Clinton how the remark had been made, and how light a bearing, after all, it had upon himself.

Clinton received it with a careless bow, as if, at best, he considered it a matter of no consequence.

"And so he actually insinuated that you had it, eh, in the end?"

"Yes--and that's the most I care for; if he had believed me honest, I could have borne the rest unmurmuringly; but to be thought a thief!"

"It seems hard enough, don't it?" said Clinton, in a tone of sympathetic kindness, well-calculated to win on the trusting heart beside him, and laying one hand familiarly on Arthur's knee.

"It's a deuced piece of business, that's all about it!" cried Quirk, growing excited with the wine he had swallowed; "it's an insult I wouldn't take from any man--old or young, or little or big; I'll be dem'd if I would."

An insult! that was a light in which he had not exactly placed it before, and Arthur's blood rose at the thought. Clinton remarked it, with a twinkle of gratification in his keen eye, which he strove to conceal from Arthur's observation.

"It's enough to drive one desperate! I scarcely know what I should do under such circumstances," said he, suddenly, with his eyes fixed keenly upon Arthur's flushed face.

"There's no way for me to do but to put up with it," returned Arthur, doggedly; "I've got to stay there, and make it up; and I may as well do it quietly as to make a disturbance about it, because it's got to be done."