Roderick tried them and found that at first they smoothed his path delightfully.
This simplification of matters, however, was only momentary, for he soon perceived that to seem to have money, and to have it in fact, exposed a good-looking young man to peculiar liabilities.

At this point of his friend's narrative, Rowland was reminded of Madame de Cruchecassee in The Newcomes, and though he had listened in tranquil silence to the rest of it, he found it hard not to say that all this had been, under the circumstances, a very bad business.

Roderick admitted it with bitterness, and then told how much--measured simply financially--it had cost him.

His luck had changed; the tables had ceased to back him, and he had found himself up to his knees in debt.

Every penny had gone of the solid sum which had seemed a large equivalent of those shining statues in Rome.