When the story opens, the young man has come to visit his bride-elect in her country home; and his mephistopheles has followed him, under a transparent pretext, to secure a last chance of winning money from him at cards.
"A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)"
Mrs. Sutherland Orr
It may be so; my own acquaintance with club life, though not very extensive, does not convince me that every member of a London club is a mephistopheles; but I will admit that a certain excess of hard worldly wisdom may be generated in such resorts; and we find many conspicuous traces of that tendency in the clubs of Queen Anne's reign.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen
He, evidently, was the mephistopheles of the group.
"The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley"
Bertram Mitford