‘Warn away,’ replied Collis. He bowed at Laurence Melford’s disappearing back, and then he stepped smartly on to the footman’s toe and continued quickly away down the corridor, turning only when he reached the corner by the auditorium doors to give the footman a wave. Then, stirred up, still trembling with nervousness and excitement, he returned to Sam Lewis’s box on the other side of the theatre.

‘Well?’ asked Knickerbocker Jane. ‘I could see a bit of flurry going on in their box. Did you get anywhere?’

Collis took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. ‘I think so,’ he said, pulling his chair forward. ‘With Sarah Melford, anyway. I’m not so sure about Papa. I think he’s one of these gentlemen who has to be your enemy before he can be your friend.’

‘Not a good enemy to have in San Francisco,’ commented Charles. ‘Not a good friend, either. You’d have done better to leave well enough alone.’

Collis shook his head. ‘I can’t. Not a man as powerful and arrogant as that. Not when he’s got a daughter that looks like Sarah.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Knickerbocker Jane and sighed. ‘As the moth to the candle flame is drawn.’

That night, like a man revisiting a compulsive dream, he was back again in the smoky realms of the Eagle Saloon, at Dan McReady’s faro table. Dan McReady had not acknowledged him when he sat down with anything more than a sideways flicker of the eyes, but both men knew why Collis was there, and what the terms of the game were. The atmosphere that they generated between them infected the rest of the saloon, too, and several other tables closed down as drinkers and gamblers came to stand around with cigars and whisky and watch Collis and McReady play.

Collis had brought with him, in a leather satchel he had borrowed from Knickerbocker Jane, the $1000 he had won the night before. He bet steadily, confidently, and evenly; but for the first part of the evening his luck didn’t run very high. As the clock struck one, he was nearly $200 down.

He called for a stone fence, and this time the barman sent a boy to run out for a jug of cider. The stone fence was mixed strong, and served up in a thick glass tankard. Collis drank almost half of it, and then loosened his white tie.