At
first, he had limited himself to 10,000; after breakfast, it was
to have been 20,000; then 30,000 was the ultimatum; and now he
dismissed all thoughts of limits from his mind, and was
determined to risk or gain everything.
'At midnight he had lost L48,000.
'Affairs now began to be serious. His supper was not so hearty.
While the rest were eating, he walked about the room, and began
to limit his ambition to recovery, and not to gain.
'When you play to win back, the fun is over: there is nothing to
recompense you for your bodily tortures and your degraded
feelings; and the very best result that can happen, while it has
no charms, seems to your cowed mind impossible.
'On they played, and the duke lost more. His mind was jaded. He
floundered--he made desperate efforts, but plunged deeper in the
slough. Feeling that, to regain his ground, each card must tell,
he acted on each as if it must win, and the consequences of this
insanity (for a gamester at such a crisis is really insane) were,
that his losses were prodigious.
'Another morning came, and there they sat, ankle-deep in cards.
No attempt at breakfast now--no affectation of making a toilet,
or airing the room.
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