Bromfield bought a small stack of chips at the roulette table.

"Won't you take a whirl at the wheel?" he asked Lindsay.

"Thanks, no, I believe not," his guest answered.

The Westerner was a bit disgusted at his host's lack of discrimination.
"Does he think I'm a soft mark too?" he wondered. "If this is what he
calls high life I've had more than enough already."

His disgust was shared by the clubman. Bromfield had never been in
such a dive before. His gambling had been done in gilded luxury.
While he touched shoulders with this motley crew his nostrils twitched
with fastidious disdain. He played, but his interest was not in the
wheel. Durand had promised that there would be women and that one of
them should be bribed to make a claim upon Clay at the proper moment.
He had an unhappy feeling that the gang politician had thrown him down
in this. If so, what did that mean? Had Durand some card up his
sleeve? Was he using him as a catspaw to rake in his own chestnuts?

Clarendon Bromfield began to weaken. He and Clay were the only two men
in the room in evening clothes. His questing eye fell on tough,
scarred faces that offered his fears no reassurance. Any one or all of
them might be agents of Durand.

He shoved all of his chips out, putting half of them on number eight
and the rest on seventeen. His object was to lose his stack
immediately and be free to go. To his annoyance the whirling ball
dropped into the pocket labeled eight.