"A quarter to twelve! By Heaven if my luck don't change before the year is out, I vow I'll never touch a card in the next!" exclaimed one of several men playing lansquenet in Harry Godolphin's rooms at Knightsbridge.

There were seven or eight of them, some with long rent-rolls, others within an ace of the Queen's Bench; the poor devils losing in the long run much oftener and more recklessly than the rich fellows; all of them playing high, as that beau joueur of the Guards, Godolphin, always did.

Luck had been dead against the man who spoke ever since they had deserted the mess-room for the cartes in the privacy of Harry's rooms. If Fortune is a woman, he ought to have found favor in her eyes. His age was between thirty and thirty-five, his figure with grace and strength combined, his features nobly and delicately cut, his head, like Canning's, one of great intellectual beauty, and by the flash of his large dark eyes, and the additional paleness of his cheek, it was easy to see he was playing high once too often.

Five minutes passed—he lost still; ten minutes' luck was yet against him. A little French clock began the Silver Chimes that rang out the Old Year; the twelfth stroke sounded, the New Year was come, and Waldemar Falkenstein rose and drank down some cognac—a ruined man.

"A happy New Year to you, and better luck, Falkenstein," cried Godolphin, drinking his toast with a ringing laugh and a foaming bumper of Chambertin. "What shall I wish you? The richest wife in the kingdom, a cabal that will break all the banks, for Mistletoe to win the Oaks, or for your eyes to be opened to your sinful state, as the parson phrases it—which, eh?"

"Thank you, Harry," laughed Falkenstein. (Like the old Spartans, we can laugh while the wolf gnaws our vitals.) "You remind me of what my holy-minded brother wrote to me when I broke my shoulder-bone down at Melton last season: 'My dear Waldemar, I am sorry to hear of your sad accident; but all things are ordered for the best, and I trust that in your present hours of solitude your thoughts may be mercifully turned to higher and better things.' Queer style of sympathy, wasn't it? I preferred yours, when you sent me 'AdÉlaÏde MÉran,' and that splendid hock I wasn't allowed to touch."

"I should say so; but catch the Pharisees giving anybody anything warmer than texts and counsels, that cost them nothing," said Tom Bevan of the Blues. "Apropos of Pharisees, have you heard that old Cash is going to build a chapel-of-ease in Belgravia, to endow that young owl Gus with as soon as he can pull himself through his 'greats?' It is thought that the dear Bella will be painted as St. Catherine for the altar-piece."

"She'll strychnine herself if we're all so hard-hearted as to leave her to St. Catharine's nightcap," laughed Falkenstein.

"Why don't you take up with her, old fellow?" said a man in Godolphin's troop. "Not the sangue puro, you'd say; rather sallied with XXX. But what does that signify? you've quarterings enough for two."

"Much good the quarterings do me. No, thank you," said Falkenstein bitterly. "I'm not going to sell myself, though my dear friends would insinuate that I was sold already to a gentleman who never quits hold of his bargains. I've fetters enough now too heavy by half to add matrimonial handcuffs to them."

"Right, old boy," said Harry. "The Cashranger hops and vats, even done in the brightest parvenu or, would scarcely look well blazoned on the royal gules. Come, sit down. Where are you going?"

"He's going to Eulalie Brown's, I bet," said Bevan. "Nonsense, Waldemar; throw her over, and stay and take your revenge—it's so early."

"No, thank you," said Falkenstein briefly. "By the way, I suppose you all go to Cashranger's to-morrow?"

"Make a point of it, answered Godolphin. I feel I'm sinning against my Order to visit him, but really his Lafitte's so good——I'm sorry you will leave us, Waldemar, but I know I might as well try to move the Marble Arch as try to turn you."

"Indeed I never set up for a Roman, Harry. The deuce take this pipe, it won't light. Good night to you all." And leaving them drinking hard, laughing loud, and telling grivois tales before they sat down to play in all its delirious delight, he sprang into a hanson, and drove, not to Eulalie Brown's petit souper, but to his own rooms in Duke Street, St. James's.

Falkenstein's governor, some two-score years before, had got in mauvaise odeur in Vienna for some youthful escapade at court; powerful as his princely family was, had been obliged to fly the country; and, coming over here, entered himself at the Bar, and, setting himself to work with characteristic energy, had, wonderful to relate, made a fortune at it. A fine, gallant, courtly ancien noble was the Count, haughty and passionate at times, after the manner of the house; fond of his younger son Waldemar, who at school had tanned boys twice his size; rode his pony in at the finish; smoked, swam, and otherwise conducted himself, till all the rest of the boys worshipped him, though I believe the masters generally attributed to him more diablerie than divinity. But of late, unluckily, his father had been much dominated over by Waldemar's three sisters, ladies of a chill and High Church turn of mind, and by his brother, who in early life had been a prize boy and a sap, and received severe buffetings from his junior at football; and now, being much the more conventional and unimpeachable of the two, took his revenge by carrying many tales to the old Count of his wilder son—tales to which Falkenstein gave strong foundation. For he was restless and reckless, strikingly original, and, above the common herd, too impatient to take any meddling with his affairs, and too proud to explain where he was misjudged; and, though he held a crack government place, good pay, and all but a sinecure, he often spent more than he had, for economy was a dead-letter to him, and if any man asked him a loan, he was too generous to say "No." Life in all its phases he had seen from the time he left school, and you know, mon ami, we cannot see life on a groat—at least, through the bouquet of the wines at VÉfours, and the brilliance of the gas-light in Casinos and Redoutes. The fascinations of play were over him—the iron hand of debt pressed upon him; altogether, as he sat through the first hours of the New Year, smoking, and gazing on the flickering fire gleams, there was not much light either in his past or future!

Keenly imaginative and susceptible, blasÉ and skeptical though he was, the weight of the Old Year and of many gone before it, weighed heavily on his thoughts. Scenes and deeds of his life, that he would willingly have blotted out, rose before him; vague regrets, unformed desires, floated to him on the midnight chimes.

The Old Year was drifting away on the dark clouds floating on to the sea, the New Year was dawning on the vast human life swarming in the costly palaces and crowded dens around him. The past was past, ineffaceable, and relentless; the future lay hid in the unborn days, and Falkenstein, his pipe out, his fire cold and black, took a sedative, and threw himself on his bed, to sleep heavily and restlessly through the struggling morning light of the New Year.

James Cashranger, Esq., of 133, Lowndes Square, was a millionnaire, and the million owed its being to the sale of his entire, which was of high celebrity, being patronised by all the messes and clubs, shipped to all the colonies, blessed by all the H. E. I. C.s, shouted by all the potmen as "Beer-r-r-how," and consumed by all England generally. But Cashranger's soul soared above the snobisms of malt and jack, and À la Jourdain, of bourgeois celebrity, he would have let any Dorante of the beau monde fleece him through thick and thin, and, en effet, gave dinners and drums unnumbered to men and women, who, like Godolphin, went there for the sake of his Lafitte, and quizzed him mercilessly behind his back. The first day Harry dined there with nine other spirits worse than himself—Cashranger having begged him to bring some of his particular chums—he looked at the eleventh seat, and asked, with consummate impudence, who it was for?

"Why, really, my dear Colonel, it is for—for myself," faltered the luckless brewer.

"Oh?—ah?—I see," drawled Harry; "you mistook me; I said I'd dine here—I didn't say I'd dine with you."

That, however, was four or five years before; now, Godolphin having proclaimed his cook and cellar worth countenancing, and his wife, the relict of a lieutenant in the navy, being an admirable adept in the snob's art of "pushing," plenty of exclusive dandies and extensive fine ladies crushed up the stairs on New Year's-night to one of Cashranger's numerous "At homes." Among them, late enough, came Falkenstein. These sort of crushes bored him beyond measure, but he wanted to see Godolphin about some intelligence he had had of an intended illegitimate use of the twitch to Mistletoe, that sweet little chestnut who stood favorite for the Oaks. He soon paid his devoir to madame, who wasn't quite accustomed even yet to all this grandeur after her early struggles on half-pay, and to her eldest daughter, the Bella aforesaid, a showy, flaunting girl with a peony color, and went on through the rooms seeking Harry, stopping, however, for a word to every pretty woman he knew; for though he began to find his game grow stale, he and the beau sexe have a mutual attraction. Little those women guessed, as they smiled in his handsome eyes, and laughed at his witty talk, and blushed at his soft voice, how heartily sick he was of their frivolities, and how often disappointment and sarcasm lurked in his mocking words. To be blasÉ was no affectation with Falkenstein; it was a very earnest reality, as with most of us who have knocked about in the world, not only from the variety of his manifold experiences, but from the trickery, and censure, and cold water with which the world had treated him.

"You here, old fellow?" said Bevan of the Blues, meeting him in the music-room, where some artistes were singing Traviata airs. "You don't care for this row, do you? Come along with me, and I'll show you something that will amuse you better."

"Show me Godolphin, and I'll thank you. I didn't come to stay—did you?"

"No. Horrid bore, ain't it? But since you are here, you may as well take a look at the dearest little actress I ever saw since I was a boy, and bewitched by LÉontine Fay. Sit down." Bevan went on, as they entered a room fitted up like a theatre, "There, it's that one with blue eyes, got up like a Watteau's huntress; isn't she a brilliant little thing?"

"Very. She plays as well as DÉjazet. Who is she?"

"Don't know. Can you tell us, Forester?"

"She's old Cash's niece," said Forester, not taking his eyes off the stage. "Come as a sort of companion to the beloved Bella; dangerous companion, I should say, for there's no comparing the two."

"What's her name?"

"Viola—Violet—no, ValÉrie L'Estrange. L'Estrange, of the 10th, ran away with Cash's sister. God knows why. Horrid low connexion, and no money. She went speedily to glory, and he drank himself to death two years ago in Lahore. I remember him, a big fellow, fourteen stone, pounded Bully Batson once at Moseley, and there wasn't such another hard hitter among the fancy as Bully. When he departed this life, of course his daughter was left to her own devices, with scarcely a rap to buy her bonnets. Clever little animal she is, too; she wrote those proverbs they're now playing; full of dash, and spice, ain't they? especially when you think a girl wrote 'em."

"Introduce me as soon as they're over," said Falkenstein, leaning back to study the young actress and author, who was an engaging study enough, being full of grace and vivacity, with animated features, mobile eyebrows, dark-blue eyes, and chestnut hair. "Anything original would be as great a wonder as to buy Cavendish in Regent-Street that wasn't bird's-eye."

"ValÉrie's original enough for anybody's money. Hark how she's firing away at Egerton. Pretty little soft voice she has. I do like a pretty voice for a woman," said Forester, clapping softly, with many a murmured bravisima.

"You're quite enthusiastic," smiled Falkenstein. "Pity you haven't a bouquet to throw at her."

"Don't you poke fun at me, you cynic," growled Forester. "I've seen you throw bouquets at much plainer women."

"And the bouquets and the women were much alike in morning light—faded and colorless on their artificial stalks as soon as the gas glare was off them."

"Hold your tongue, Juvenal," laughed Forester, "or I vow I won't introduce you. You'll begin satirising poor little Val as soon as you've spoken to her."

"Oh, I can be merciful to the weak; don't I let you alone, Forester?" laughed Waldemar, as the curtain fell.

The proverbs were over, and having put herself in ball-room style, the author came among the audience. He amused himself with watching how she took her numerous compliments, and was astonished to detect neither vanity nor shyness, and to hear her turn most of them aside with a laugh. She was quite as attractive off as on the stage, especially with the aroma of her sparkling proverbs hanging about her; and Falkenstein got his introduction, and consigning Godolphin and Mistletoe to futurity, waltzed with her, and found her dancing as full of grace and lightness as an Andalusian's or ArlÉsienne's. Falkenstein cared little enough for the saltatory art, but this waltz did not bore him, and when it was over, regardless of some dozen names written on her tablets, he gave her his arm, and they strolled out of the ball-room into a cooler atmosphere. He found plenty of fun in her, as he had expected from her proverbs, and sat down beside her in the conservatory to let himself be amused for half an hour.

"Do you know many of the people here?" she asked him. "Is there anybody worth pointing out? There ought to be, in four or five hundred dwellers in the aristocratic west."

"I know most of them personally or by report, but they are all of the same stamp, like the petals of that camellia, some larger and some smaller, but all cut in the same pattern. Most of them apostles of fashion, martyrs to debt, worshippers of the rising sun. All of them created by art, from the young ladies who owe their roses and lilies to Breidenbach, to the ci-devant jeunes hommes, who buy their figures in Bond Street and their faces from Isidore. All of them actors—and pretty good actors, too—from that pretty woman yonder, who knows her milliner may imprison her any day for the lace she is now drawing round her with a laugh, to that sleek old philanthropist playing whist through the doors there, whose guinea points are paid by the swindle of half England."

She laughed.

"Lend me your lorgnon. I should like to see around me as you do."

"Wait twenty years, you will have it; there are two glasses to it—experience and observation."

"But your glasses are smoked, are they not?" said ValÉrie, with a quick glance at him; "for you seem to me to see everything en noir."

He smiled.

"When I was a boy I had a Claude glass, but they break very soon; or rather, as you say, grow dark and dim with the smoke of society. But you ask me about these people. You know them, do you not, as they are your uncle's guests?"

She shook her head.

"I have been here but a week or two. For the last two years I have been vegetating among the fens, with a maiden aunt of poor papa's."

"And did you like the country?"

"Like it!" cried ValÉrie, "I was buried alive. Everything was so dreadfully punctual and severe in that house, that I believe the very cat had forgotten how to purr. Breakfast at eight, drive at two, dinner at five, prayers at ten. Can't you fancy the dreary diurnal round, with a pursy old rector or two, and three or four high-dried county princesses as callers once a quarter? Luckily, I can amuse myself, but oh, you cannot think how I sickened of the monotony, how I longed to live! At last, I grew so naughty, I was expelled."

"May I inquire your sins?" asked Falkenstein, really amused for once.

She laughed at the remembrance.

"I read 'Notre-Dame' against orders, and I rode the fat old mare round the paddock without a saddle. I saw no harm in it; as a child, I read and rode everything I came near, but the rough-riding was condemned as unfeminine, and any French book, were it even the 'GÉnie du Christianisme,' or the 'Petit CarÊme,' would be regarded by Aunt Agatha, who doesn't know a word of the language, as a powder magazine of immorality and infidelity."

"C'est la profonde ignorance qui inspire le ton dogmatique," laughed Falkenstein. "But surely you have been accustomed to society."

"No, never; but I am made for it, I fancy," said ValÉrie, with an unconscious compliment to herself. "When I was with the dear old Tenth, I used to enjoy myself, but I was a child then. The officers were very kind to me—gentlemen always are much more so than ladies"—("Pour cause," thought Waldemar, as she went on)—"but ever since then I have vegetated as I tell you, in much the same still life as the anemones in my vase."

"Yet you could write those proverbs," said he, involuntarily.

She laughed, and colored.

"Oh, I have written ever since I could make A B C, and I have not forgotten all I saw with the old Tenth. But come, tell me more of these people; I like to hear your satire."

"I am glad you do," said Falkenstein, with a smile; "for only those who have no foibles to hit have a relish for sarcasm. Do you think Messaline and LÉlie had much admiration for La BruyÈre's periods, however well turned or justly pointed? but those whom the caps did not fit probably enjoyed them as you and I do. All satirists, from Martial downwards, most likely gain an enemy for each truth they utter, for in this bal masquÉ of life it is not permitted to tear the masks off our companions."

"Do you wear one?" asked ValÉrie, quickly. "I fancy, like Monte Cristo, your pleasure is to 'usurper les vices que vous n'avez pas, et de cacher les vertus que vous avez.'"

"Virtues? If you knew me better, you would know that I never pretend to any. If you compare me to Monte Cristo, say rather that I 'prÊche loyalement l'Égoisme,'" laughed Falkenstein. "Upon my word, we are talking very seriously for a ball-room. I ought to be admiring your bouquet, Miss L'Estrange, or petitioning for another waltz."

"Don't trouble yourself. I like this best," said ValÉrie, playing with the flowers round her. "And I ought to have my own way, for this is my birthday."

"New Year's-day? Indeed! Then I am sure I wish you most sincerely the realisation of all your ideals and desires, which, to the imaginative author of the proverbs, will be as good as wishing her Aladdin's lamp," smiled Falkenstein.

She smiled too, and sighed.

"And about as improbable as Aladdin's lamp. Did you see the Old Year out last night?"

"Yes," he answered, briefly; for the remembrance of what he had lost watching it out was not agreeable to him.

"There was a musical party here," continued ValÉrie, "but I got away from it, for I like to be alone when the past and the future meet—do not you?"

"No; your past is pure, your future is bright. Mine are not so; I don't want to be stopped to contemplate them."

"Nor are mine, indeed; but the death of an Old Year is sad and solemn to me as the death of a friend, and I like to be alone in its last hour. I wonder," she continued, suddenly, "what this year will bring. I wonder where you and I shall be next New Year's-night?"

Falkenstein laughed, not merrily.

"I shall be in Kensal Green or the Queen's Bench, very likely. Why do you look astonished Miss L'Estrange; one is the destination of everybody in these rooms, and the other probably of one-half of them."

"Don't speak so bitterly—don't give me sad thoughts on my birthday. Oh, how tiresome!" cried ValÉrie, interrupting herself, "there comes Major D'Orwood."

"To claim you?"

"Yes; I'd forgotten him entirely. I promised to waltz with him an hour ago."

"What the devil brought you here to interrupt us?" thought Falkenstein, as the Guardsman lisped a reproof at ValÉrie's cruelty, and gave her his arm back to the ball-room. Waldemar stopped her, however, engaged her for the next, and sauntered through the room on her other side. He waltzed a good deal with her, paying her that sort of attention which Falkenstein knew how to make the softest and subtlest homage a woman could have. Amused himself, he amused her with his brilliant and pointed wit, so well, that ValÉrie L'Estrange told him, when he bid her good night, that she had never enjoyed any birthday so much.

"Well," said Bevan, as they drove away from 133, Lowndes Square, "did you find that wonderful little L'Estrange as charming a companion as actress? You ought to know, for you've been after her all night, like a ferret after a rabbit."

"Yes," said Falkenstein, taking out a little pet briarwood pipe, "I was very pleased with her: she's worth no more than the others, probably, au fond, but she's very entertaining and frank: she'll tell you anything. Poor child! she can't be over-comfortable in Cash's house. She's a lady by instinct; that odious ostentation and snobbish toadying must disgust her. Besides, Bella is not very likely to lead a girl a very nice life who is partially dependent on her father, and infinitely better style than herself."

"The devil, no! That flaunting, flirting, over-dressed Cashranger girl is my detestation. She'll soon find means to worry littil ValÉrie. Women have a great spice of the mosquito in 'em, and enjoy nothing more than stinging each other to death."

"Well, she must get Forester or D'Orwood—some man who can afford it—to take compassion upon her. All of them finish so when they can; the rich ones marry for a title, and the poor ones for a home," said the Count, stirring up his pipe. "Here's my number; thank you for dropping me; and good night, old fellow."

"Good night. Pleasant dreams of your author and actress, aux longs yeux bleus."

Waldemar laughed as he took out his latch-key. "I'm afraid I couldn't get up so much romance. You and I have done with all that, Tom. Confound it, I never saw Godolphin, after all. Well, I must go and breakfast with him to-morrow."