Gilbert Parker

“ If I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy—my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, my soul on you—that beautiful, beloved face; those deep eyes in which my being is drowned; those lucid, perfect hands that have bound me to the mast of your destiny. ”

“ It’s nice to have; it makes a man feel warm—money does. I’d sleep in ten-dollar bills, I’d have my clothes made of them, if I could; I’d have my house papered with them; I’d eat ’em. Oh, I know—I know about you—and her—Diana Welldon! You’ve sworn off gambling, and you’ve kept your pledge for near a year. Well, it’s twenty years since I gambled—twenty years. I gambled with these then.” He shook the dice in the box. “I gambled everything I had away—more than two thousand dollars, more than two thousand dollars.” He laughed a raw, mirthless laugh. “Well, you’re the greatest gambler in the West. ”

“ The head and neck, the whole personality, had an air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills, when on a visit to that “Wild West” which has such power to refine and inspire minds not superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a castle in Scotland. It had been the gift of Diana Welldon on a certain day not long ago, when Flood Rawley had made a pledge to her, which, so far, he had kept—which was as vital to him and to his future as two thousand dollars were vital to Dan Welldon now. ”

“ Rawley leaned forward, one elbow on a knee, the cheroot in his fingers. He spoke almost confidentially, as to some ignorant and misguided savage—as he had talked to Indian chiefs in his time, when searching for the truth regarding some crime:
“I’ve had a lot of revelations in my time. A lawyer and a doctor always do. And though there are folks who say I’m no lawyer, as there are those who say with greater truth that you’re no doctor, speaking technically, we’ve both had ‘revelations.’ You’ve seen a lot that’s seamy, and so have I. You’re pretty seamy yourself. ”

“ I’ve got money—money, plenty of money—medicine, mines, land got it for me; I’ve been lucky. Now you—you come to bluff me—me! You don’t know old Busby.” He spat on the floor. “I’m not to be bluffed—I know too much. Before they could lynch me I’d talk. But to play you, the greatest gambler in the West, for two thousand dollars—yes, I’d like the sting of it again—twos, fours, double-sixes—the gentleman’s game!” He rattled the dice and threw them with a flourish out on the table, his evil face lighting up. “Come! You can’t have something for nothing,” he growled. ”

“ One morning, a year later, the West came to know the true story of old Busby, the quack doctor, who was found dead in his bed with his great-coat on, and a blanket over him, both of which were lined with bank-bills of all denominations.
But Diana Welldon remains ignorant still of the one deceit her husband practised against her. On the whole they were quits, as Dan said, and Dan had reason to know. Dan mattered, but Diana mattered more; and so the world thinks. For a girl from the West her vogue is remarkable. ”

“ Sometimes day and night there flash before my eyes—my mind’s eyes—pictures of you and me in places unfamiliar, landscapes never before seen, activities uncomprehended and unknown, bright, alluring glimpses of some second being, some possible, maybe never-to-be-realised future, alas! ”

“ I want two thousand dollars to help a friend in a hole, and I mean to have it—if you think your neck’s worth it.”
Teeth, wonderfully white, showed through the shaggy beard. “If I had to go to prison—or swing, as you say, do you think I’d go with my mouth shut? I’d not pay up alone. The West would crack—holy Heaven, I know enough to make it sick. Go on and see! I’ve got the West in my hand.” He opened and shut his fingers with a grimace of cruelty which shook Rawley in spite of himself. ”

“ The real business of life is trying to understand each other.” ”

“ But not till I’ve finished with it—not unless you win it from me at dice or cards.... But no”—something human came into the old, degenerate face—“no more gambling for the man that’s to marry Diana. There’s a wonder and a beauty!” He chuckled to himself. “She’ll be rich when I’ve done with it. You’re a lucky man—aye, you’re lucky.”
Rawley was about to tell the old man what the two thousand dollars was for, but a fresh wave of repugnance passed over him, and, hastily drinking another dipperful of water, he opened the door. ”

“ Rawley continued; “and you’ve kept a lot of people in the West from passing in their cheques before their time. You’ve rooked ’em, chiselled ’em out of a lot of cash, too. There was old Lamson—fifteen hundred for the goitre on his neck; and Mrs. Gilligan for the cancer—two thousand, wasn’t it? Tincture of Lebanon leaves you called the medicine, didn’t you? You must have made fifty thousand or so in the last ten years.”
“What I’ve made I’ll keep,” was the guttural answer, and the talon-like fingers clawed the table.
“You’ve made people pay high for curing them, saving them sometimes ”