"Monsieur," said a handsome woman, whose eyes had proved pitfalls for
many an unwary one, "only one louis, and look! I know a way to make
Monsieur le Croupier push the rake toward me. Eh?"
"Here," said I, giving her the louis. She flew away, and I laughed.
Gambling never had any dignity or disinterestedness.
Of all those I had left at the table only three remained. The other
faces were new. And how that pile of gold and bank-notes at the side of
the croupier had grown!
A crabbed old lady arose, crumpling her system card in her hand, and I
popped into her vacant chair. I cast about a casual glance. Seated next
to me was a very beautiful young girl. She was alone, and appeared most
emphatically out of place in this gilded Hades. Her eyes were blue and
moist and starlike, but there was fever in her cheeks and lips. There
was very little gold before her, and this dwindled as I watched. She was
playing 17, 20 and 32, persistently and doggedly; and each time the rake
drew in her money I could see her delicate nostrils quiver and her lips
draw to a thin line. From time to time she cast a hasty glance over her
shoulder, a shamed and hunted look. In watching her I came very near
forgetting why I was seated at the table.
"Make your game, gentlemen; make your game,--the game is made."
Whirr-rr-rr! went the evil sphere. It dropped into 20. The girl at my
side gasped, but too soon. The ball bounded out, and zig-zagged till it
rolled complacently into the zero. The young girl had played her last
louis and lost. A chivalric impulse came to me to thrust half of my
money toward her. I had done as much for a woman of the half-world. But
the gambler's selfishness checked the generous deed. The blind Madonna
was biding her time, as you shall presently see.
The girl arose, brushing her eyes. She turned, and in a moment had
disappeared in the moving throng of sightseers.
"Make your game, gentlemen!"
I came back to the sordidness of things. 17, 20, 32; where had I seen
this combination before?--Good heavens, that was not possible!
Where was her brother? If this should be the girl of the railway coach!
I half arose, as if to follow. Chance whispered in my ear: "Of what
use?" I laid a stake on 29. In less than forty minutes I had nothing
left but three days' board at the hotel. I fingered my gold
cuff-buttons. The rubies were at least worth two hundred francs--No; I
would not part with them. They were heirlooms. They should be buried
with me.
I forgot all about the beautiful girl and her despair. I, Robert
Chadwick, of an old and respected family, once wealthy, had reached the
end of my rope. It would make interesting reading in the papers. Not a
penny to my name, not a roof over my head, unless I swallowed my pride
and begged of my sister. I could send home for nothing, because I had
nothing.
"Make your game, gentlemen," said the bald-headed croupier.
I sat there, stupidly watching the ball. It rolled into zero, and the
fat English brewer added three hundred and fifty louis to his ill-gotten
gains. I experienced the wild desire to spring upon him and cram his
wealth down his fat throat. What right had he to win when he had
millions backing him? I felt through my clothes again, and the croupier
eyed me coldly.
"Never mind, monsieur," I said to him, with a snarling laugh; "I have
paid for my chair to-night."
"Twenty-nine wins, black and odd!"
My number! It repeated. The brewer laughed as he heard my oath.
"Here is your louis, monsieur," cried a voice over my shoulder. A louis
dropped in front of me. I looked up. It was the irregular lady to whom I
had given the gold upon entering.
I threw a kiss at her as she danced away. She had won three thousand
francs at red-and-black. I spun the coin in the air and let it rest
where it fell. From where I sat it looked as if it had split upon 17 and
20. Twenty came up, and I expected to receive at least half the stake.
But the croupier warned me back with the rake. He and an attendant
peered searchingly at the coin, then beckoned to me to observe. The
breadth of a hair separated the rim of the coin from the line. I had
lost.
"Damnation!" I arose and made my way through the crowd. I gained the
outer air, biting my mustache. Till that moment I had never measured the
extent of my vituperative vocabulary. I swore till I was out of breath.
I cursed Smeed for having aroused the gambling devil in my veins; I
cursed my lack of will power; I cursed the luck which had followed me
these ten months; I cursed Wall Street, which had been the primal means
of bringing me to this destitution. Oh, I tell you, gentlemen, that fury
burned up at least five years of my life. I must have gesticulated
extravagantly, for a guardian of the peace approached me.
"Monsieur has lost?" he inquired mildly.
"What the devil is that to you?"
"Oh, I could find monsieur a ticket back to Paris, if he so desires."
"Cheaper than burying me here, eh? Well, you go along with you; I am not
going to cut my throat this evening; nor to-morrow evening." And I made
off toward the terrace.
I sat down on one of the seats, lit my last cigar, and tried to
contemplate the mysterious beauty of a Mediterranean night. At this
moment Monte Carlo seemed to me both a heaven and a hell. Unluckily, as
I turned my head, I saw the glittering Temple of Fortune. I spat,
cursing with renewed vigor. It was surprising how well I kept up this
particular kind of monologue.
Where should I begin life anew? In the wheat country, in the cattle
country, or in the mines? I had a good knowledge of minerals and the
commercial value of each. It wasn't as if I had been brought up with a
golden spoon. I knew how to work, though I had never done a stroke
outside of Wall Street. If only I had not mortgaged the estate! Useless
recrimination! Bah! I had three days at the hotel. I could eat, and
sleep, and bathe.
The band stopped; and it was then that I became conscious of a sound
like that of sobbing. Across the path I discovered the figure of a
woman. She was weeping on her arms which were thrown over the back of
the seat. The spot was secluded. Just then some yacht below sent up a
rocket which burst above us in a warm glow--It was the young woman I had
seen at the table. I arose to approach her, when I saw something
glittering at her feet. It proved to be a solitary louis. I stooped and
picked it up, joyful at the chance of having an excuse to speak to the
girl.
"Mademoiselle, you have dropped a louis."
"I, monsieur? Oh!" Evidently she had recognized me. "I have dropped no
gold here,"--striving to check the hiccoughs into which her sobs had
turned.
"But I found it close to your feet," I explained.
"It is not mine, monsieur; it is not mine! Leave me."
"You are in trouble?" I addressed this question in English.
"You are English?"--as one who grasps at a straw.
"Almost; I am an American. I observed you at the Casino to-night. You
have suffered some losses," I suggested gently.
"That is my affair, sir!"--with sudden dignity.
"May I not offer you some aid?" I asked, forgetting that, if anything, I
was worse off than she could possibly be. I turned the louis over and
over. What a terrible thing gambling was! "My proposal is perfectly
honorable. I am a gentleman. You have committed a folly to-night, a
folly which you have never before committed and which doubtless you
will never commit again. Where is your brother? Are you here alone,
without masculine protection?"
"My brother?"
The rockets soared again; and the agony written on the girl's face
excited something stronger than pity. I fumbled in a pocket and drew
forth a card.
"My name is Chadwick; permit me--" Then I laughed insanely, even
hysterically. "I beg your pardon! I was about to offer you material
assistance. I haven't a penny in the world, and nothing of value save a
pair of cuff-buttons. In fact, I don't see how I am to leave this
wretched place."
This odd confession aroused her interest.
"You have lost all your money, too?"
Too! So I had read shrewdly. She was in the same predicament as myself.
"Yes. Won't you accept this louis?"
"A single louis?" She laughed wildly. "A single louis? What good would
that do me?"
"But where is your brother?"
"He is ill at the hotel. Oh, I am the most unhappy woman in the world!"
And her sobbing broke forth afresh.
"Pardon my former deception, but I understand German perfectly well."
"You?"
"Yes. I was a passenger in the same coach which brought you from Dieppe
to Paris last fall. Perhaps you do not remember me; but I recollect the
conversation between you and your brother. He has gambled away money
which did not belong to him--even as I have gambled away my patrimony
and the family roof."
"And I--and I have done the same thing! Thinking that perhaps I, having
never gambled, might be lucky enough to win back what my brother lost, I
have risked and lost the money realized on my jewels for passage home!"
"Use this louis to send home for money," I urged.
"I dare not, I dare not! My father would disown my brother; and I love
my brother!"
Sisters, sometimes, are very fond beings.
Suddenly she raised her despairing face to mine.
"You,--you take the louis and play it; you!"
"I?"
"Yes, yes! Certainly it must be lucky. Play it, sir; play it!"