The Suicide Club is a trilogy of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson. The first of which is the Story of the Young Man with Cream Tarts. The Suicide Club is the place where dissipated, young men go to conclude their downward spiral. You know the type — gamblers, drunkards, philanderers. They have reached the bottom and have lost all hope. Many still cling to some odd notion of honor that precludes suicide while others do not possess the determination to kill themselves. And so enters the Suicide Club. It handles arranging the details of an “accidental death” and until then provides a stimulating atmosphere for conversation, gambling, smoking, and drinking.

You'll have to read the story if want all the details (here or here), but one piece of information that is vital to what I want to write about is this: the member who will die on any given evening is selected through the dealing of cards. The ace of spades is the sign of death. This adds an additional thrill for the young men and perhaps a sense of Fate.

My character of interest is, of course, the young man with the cream tarts. He inherited quite a good living from his family, but is not exactly frugal. Why don't I let him speak for himself:

I can play the violin nearly well enough to earn money in the orchestra of a penny gaff, but not quite. The same remark applies to the flute and the French horn. I learned enough of whist to lose a hundred a year at that scientific game. My acquaintance with French was sufficient to enable me to squander money in Paris with almost the same facility as in London. In short, I am a person full of manly accomplishments.

In the story we meet him as he is squandering his last available forty pounds by giving away tarts in the pubs of London. He had met a girl, fallen in love, and then realized he did not have enough money left to marry her. He chose to rapidly blow the rest of his money and join the club.

On his second night at the club (I'm skipping a lot of the back story), someone else is dealt the ace of spades. The young man goes up to him and says, “I would give a million, if I had it, for your luck.” There is an interesting observation about human nature here (whether intentional on Stevenson's part or not). When man loses hope — when he is drowning in life's ocean — he loses the ability to reason or see his way out. The young man of the tarts was at this moment willing to give a million pounds for death when those same million pounds would certainly suffice to support a wife.