Mary ordered coffee in the hall, because something of her delight in the
gay restaurant had been crushed out by Vanno's snub. She was no longer
at peace under his eyes, and wished to avoid meeting them again, so it
was pleasanter to go away. But even in the hall she could not forget
him, as she had forgotten him after Marseilles. When he too came out
from the restaurant, not long after, she saw him, though he was at a
distance, saw him without even turning her eyes; and she thought how
tall he was, and how much a man, although slender to the point of
leanness. He sat on a sofa in the hall, and ordered coffee. Mary knew,
though she did not look at him again, and interested herself instead in
other people.
All those who came from dinner, except the Prince, drank their coffee
and went out. Some went by the front door, taking the direction of the
Casino. Others disappeared into an unknown part of the hotel; and so
many chose this way, that Mary inquired of a passing waiter where they
were all going. "To the Casino, Mademoiselle, by the underground
passage, to avoid the night air," the servant answered.
To the Casino. Everybody was going to the Casino. It was time that Mary
should go to the Casino, too. She had brought down her new white cloak
with the swansdown collar, and asked a liveried man to put it aside for
her while she dined. Now she claimed it again, and having no fear of the
"night air," walked out into the azure flood which had overflowed the
fantastic fairyland like deep, blue water. The gardens lay drowned in
this translucent, magic sea, and the coolness of the sunset hour had
been mysteriously followed by a balmy warmth, like the temperature of a
summer night in England.
There were as many people in the _Place_ as there had been in the
afternoon, and all those who were not sitting on garden seats looking at
the Casino were walking toward the Casino, or just coming out of the
Casino. The eyes of the big, horned animal were blazing with light, and
glared in the blue dusk with the hard, bright stare of the gold eyes in
a peacock's tail. Windows of the Riviera Palace on the hill above were
like orange-coloured lanterns hung against an indigo curtain; and in the
_Place_ itself bunches of vivid yellow lights, in globes like
illuminated fruit set on tall lamp posts, lit the foreground of the
strange picture with unnatural brilliance. Grass and trees were a vivid,
arsenical green, almost vicious yet beautiful, and the flowers gleamed
like resting butterflies. The summer warmth of the air had a curiously
tonic and exciting quality. It seemed to have gathered into its breath
the sea's salt, the luscious sweetness of heavy white datura bells
dangling among dark leaves in the gardens, an aromatic tang of pepper
trees and eucalyptus, and a vague, haunting perfume of women's hair and
laces. These mingling odours, suggested to the senses rather than
apprehended by them, mounted to Mary's brain, and set her heartstrings
quivering with unknown emotions sweet as pleasure and keen as pain.
As she went slowly down the hotel steps to walk across the _Place_ her
eyes held a new expression. When she had first told herself that she
could not stay at the convent, they had asked, looking toward the world,
"What is life?" Now they said, "I have begun to live, and I will go on,
on, no matter where, because I must know what life means."
Her cheeks were burning still from the first champagne she had ever
tasted, and the sweet air cooled them pleasantly. Seeing a number of
people on benches opposite the Casino, she decided to sit down for a few
minutes before going in. None of these benches was empty, but one was
unoccupied save for a young man and a girl, who sat at one end. Mary
rather timidly took the other corner, but the couple, after giving her a
long stare, returned to their conversation as if she were no more than a
shadow.
"This is the last, last straw!" the man grumbled, in English. "I thought
there was one missing."
"They never forget to add it to the rest," said the girl.
"Not they," he echoed. "And I wasn't doing so badly at one time. I've a
mind to apply for the _viatique_."
"I shouldn't have the courage."
"Oh, I should. I'd like to get something out of them. I hate the
Riviera, anyhow. There's too much scenery all over the place. No rest
for the eye."
"But supposing you change your mind, and want come back and try your
luck? You couldn't, if you'd taken the _viatique_."
"Yes I could--when I'd paid it back. It's supposed to be a loan, you
know, which you have to repay before you're allowed to play again."
"Oh, I didn't know!"
A group of young men walked past, laughing. "Never saw such a run of
luck," said one. "Seventeen on red and I was on it from the first.
Glorious place, Monte! Let's drink its health!"
They turned, stared with interest at Mary, and passed on, lowering their
voices. She caught the words "something new," but there was no sense in
them for her ears. She saw the Dauntreys hurrying to the Casino, with
Mrs. Collis and her daughter, and Dodo Wardropp. Two men were with them,
both young, and one rather distinguished looking. All were too deeply
absorbed in themselves and each other to notice her. The ladies were
charmingly dressed, and so were most of the women who passed, all going
quickly like the figures of a cinematograph; but some were of the
strangest possible types. Mary said to herself that they must be
infinitely more interesting in their own secret selves than lookers on
could ever know. The hidden realities in all these passionately
egotistic selves came to her as she sat watching, in attractive or
repellent flashes of light. Then she lost the secret again, and they
became mere puppets in a moving show. The only real thing was the
Casino, and she began to study the large bright face of it.
Although Mary had never travelled till now, she knew something of
architecture from beautiful pictures of ancient Greece and Rome, and
Egypt, and of the world's noblest cathedrals, which decorated the
schoolroom walls at St. Ursula's-of-the-Lake. This building, it seemed
to her, was of no recognized type of architecture. It was neither
classic nor Gothic: not Renaissance, Egyptian, nor Moorish. It gave the
impression of being a mere fantastic creation of a gay and irresponsible
brain. If a confectioner accustomed to work in coloured sugars were to
dream of a superlative masterpiece, his exalted fancy might take some
such shape as this.
The irregular, cream-coloured façade was broken up into many separate
parts by pillars and frenzied ornaments of plaster, and there had been
addition after addition, stretching away long and low to the left. A row
of large windows, discreetly veiled so that no shadows could be cast
from within, glowed with warm yellow light. Their refusal to betray any
hint of what passed on the other side suggested a hidden crowd busy
with some exciting, secret pleasure. Along the cornice of the newer
portions at the left of the original Casino were perched bronze youths
with golden wings, their hands holding aloft bunches of golden flowers.
Two towers meretriciously mosaiced with coloured tiles balanced the
centre of the higher and middle building, and a portico of iron and
glass, ornate yet banal as the architecture of a railway station,
protected the carpeted steps and the three large doors which were
grouped closely together, doors through which people constantly passed
in and out like bees at the entrance to a hive. In the pensive sweetness
of the semi-tropical night, this fantastic erection in plaster and
gilding and coloured ornaments seemed an outrage, a taunt, a purposeful
affront; and yet--the very violence of the contrast, its outrageousness,
gave it a kind of obsessing charm.
Unseen from where Mary sat, the Mediterranean sighed upon its ancient
rocks. A faint breath of the mysteriously perfumed air stirred the
exotic palms over her head and made their fronds rub against each other
gratingly, as if some secret signal were being carried on from one to
another. Turning to right, to left, or to look behind her, dimly seen
mountains soared toward a sky that deepened from asphodel to the dark
indigo of a star-powdered zenith. Eastward in the distance ran a linked
chain of lights along the high road that led to Italy; and a bright
cluster like a knot of fireflies, pulsing on the breast of a mountain,
marked the old hill-village of Roquebrune. Kindly enveloping nature was
so sane and wholesome in her vast wisdom and stillness that the
sugar-cake Casino and all its attendant artificialities struck into the
brooding peace a shrill note of challenging incongruity. The little
sparkling patch of light and colour that was Monte Carlo proclaimed that
it was there for some extraordinary and powerful purpose, that its
bizarre beauty was dedicated to exceptional uses; and it occurred to
Mary that the temple of Chance must after all diverge from every rule of
architecture in order to stamp its meaning on the mind. The feverish
decorations began to express to her the fever of gambling, and even to
create a desire for it. She felt this longing grow more insistent, like
strains of exciting music that swelled louder and louder; and suddenly
in the midst she seemed to hear Peter's voice saying, "What if it should
be true, the thing your father was afraid of?"
What if it were true? How could she tell? In his last terrible letter he
had reminded her that she had wild blood in her veins, and told her to
"be careful."
She had thought when hearing Peter's descriptions of the Riviera that
the gambling part of life there would interest her least of all, but
already she was under the spell of the Casino. It drew her toward it, as
if Fate sat hiding behind the veiled bright windows, just as Monte Carlo
had called irresistibly, forcing her to get out of the train when she
had meant to go on. She began to doubt her own nature, her own courage
and strength of will. She thought of what was passing on the other side
of the cream-white walls as if it were a battle into which she was
compelled to plunge, and she imagined that thus a young soldier might
feel in a first engagement--tremulous, and almost sick with anxiety
which was not quite fear.
Her heart beating fast, she jumped up, and crossing the road resolutely
mounted the steps which were guarded by tall, fine men in blue livery.
Inside the doors which she had watched so long she found herself
entering an outer lobby. Beyond was another, also kept by liveried men.
A room led off this, and Mary could see people leaving their wraps with
attendants who stood behind counters. She parted with her cloak, and was
given a metal disc bearing a number. Near by, a French couple, who
looked like bride and groom, were examining their discs, and telling
each other that it would be tempting Providence not to stake money on
such numbers as _onze_ and _dix-sept_. At this, Mary glanced again at
her bit of metal. Its number was 124. She remembered hearing from Peter
that in the game of roulette it was a favourite "tip" to bet on the
number representing your age. Peter spurned the idea as silly and
childish; but Mary thought it might do to begin with, as she knew
nothing better. Her age being twenty-four, she decided to adopt the
French bride's suggestion, and bet on the last two numbers cut into her
cloak-ticket.
Beyond the second lobby, she passed into a vast pillared hall, where
men and women, not all in evening dress, were strolling up and down,
smoking and chatting, or sitting on leather-covered benches, to stare
aimlessly at the promenaders, as if they were tired, or waiting for
something to happen.
This hall puzzled Mary, for she had imagined that beyond the two lobbies
she would pass directly into the gambling-rooms. Here were no tables
such as Peter had described; and the fact that she must go still farther
seemed to increase the mystery or secrecy of the place. Mary hesitated,
not knowing which way to turn, for there were several doors under the
high galleries that ran the whole length of the hall. This must be the
atrium, where, Peter had said, the "guests of Hercules" were accustomed
to make rendezvous. It was cool and classic, a hall for reflection
rather than excitement, as if it were intended for those who wished to
plan a new way of playing, or to rest in, between games.
Suddenly a man in livery with a peaked cap threw open a door at the back
and past the middle of the hall. From it instantly began to pour a
stream of people in evening dress, and as they separated themselves from
the tide, they divided into knots of twos and fours.
"Perhaps they gamble in groups, or batches," Mary thought, and her heart
sank lest she, being alone, might not be allowed to play. She could not
recall anything said by Peter about this; but she went timidly to the
door, and asked the man in livery if this were the way "into the
Casino."
"It is the way into the theatre," he informed her. "The first act of the
opera is just over. Mademoiselle is a stranger then? Those people will
go to the roulette and trente et quarante rooms to amuse themselves for
half an hour till the beginning of the next act."
"It is the roulette I want, not the opera," Mary heard herself say, as
if some one else were speaking.
"Ah, Mademoiselle has her ticket of admission?"
She showed him her _vestiaire_ ticket, and the servant of the Casino was
too polite to smile, as he explained that something else was necessary
before she would be allowed to enter the gambling-rooms. He pointed
toward three swing-doors at the far end of the hall, to the left.
Through two of these, people were going into a room beyond. Through the
middle one they were coming out into the atrium; and as the big doors
swung rapidly back and forth there were glimpses on the other side of a
vast space full of rich yellow light.
"Those messieurs stationed there would stop Mademoiselle, seeing she was
a stranger, and demand her ticket. It is better that she return to the
bureau, a room opposite the _vestiaire_ where she has left her cloak."
This was an anticlimax, after summoning courage for the plunge into
battle; but Mary returned whence she had come, to take her place behind
others who waited for tickets of admission. She listened intently to
what passed, so that she might know what to do; but it was disconcerting
when her turn came, to be asked for a visiting-card. The lately
emancipated Sister Rose possessed no such thing, and expected to be sent
away defeated. Yet a path out of the difficulty was quickly found by the
alert, frock-coated, black-necktied official behind the long desk. This
charming young woman, beautifully and expensively dressed, was not one
who deserved to be discouraged from entering the Casino. All she need do
was to give her full name and nationality, also her place of residence.
Gladly she obeyed; and holding in her hand a _carte du jour_ on which
she had written her own name, at last she had the right of entrance.
There was still one more mistake to make, however, and she promptly made
it, attempting to pass through the right-hand swing-door. But no! It was
for season-ticket holders. She must go to the left. The middle door was
for those coming out. A fat man, hurrying brusquely in before her, let
the swing-door slam in her face. "Le joueur n'a ni politesse, ni sexe,"
was a proverb of the "Rooms" which Mary Grant had never heard, but would
come to understand.
She was on the threshold of an enormous room, magnificently
proportioned, hung with lustrous chandeliers, and divided by an archway
into two sections. The farther part was much larger than that which she
had entered, and more sumptuous in decoration; but the whole was flooded
with a peculiar radiance which turned everything to gold. It was far
mellower than the light of the atrium, or the splendid rooms of the
hotel. It had actual colour like honey, or the pinky-golden skin of
apricots. It was bright, yet the impression it made on the mind was of
softness rather than brilliance; and the shining atmosphere of the room,
instead of being clear, seemed charged with infinitesimal particles of
floating gold, like motes in rays of sunshine. The tables, under darkly
shaded, low-hanging lamps, gave the effect of sending a yellow smoke,
like incense, up to the height of the great dazzling chandeliers. It was
almost as if the hands of players in fingering gold pieces day after
day, year after year for generations, had rubbed off minute flakes which
hung like a golden haze in the air.
It appeared to Mary's eyes, taking in the whole and not dwelling upon
details, that everything in the farther part of the vast domed room was
of gold: different shades of gold; dark, old gold, the richer for being
tarnished: bright, glittering, guinea gold: greenish gold, and gold of
copper red.
No other colour could have been as appropriate here.
The air was not offensively dead, but it was langorously asleep. Many
different perfumes haunted and weighed it down; but there was some
underlying, distinctive odour which excited the nerves mysteriously, and
sent the blood racing through the veins.
"It is the smell of money," Mary said to herself.
Just inside the entrance doors, on either side, was a large table round
which people sat or stood. Those standing behind the chairs of the
seated ones were at least two rows deep, crowded tightly together.
Beyond were many other tables, thronged even more densely; and ringed
thus with closely packed figures, they were like islands on a shining
golden sea, an archipelago of little islands, all of exactly the same
size, and placed at equal distances.
Mary, hardly knowing what to expect from Peter's rather vague and
disjointed descriptions, had dimly fancied clamour and confusion
bursting upon eyes and ears on the instant of entering the
gambling-rooms. But the silence of the place was as haunting and
mystery-suggesting as the indefinable odour, and more thrilling to the
imagination than the loudest noise.
She who had been Sister Rose was horrified to find herself thinking of a
cathedral lighted for a midnight mass. Almost, she expected organ music
to peal out.
Slowly she moved down the room, past the first tables, and, as she
walked, the muffled, characteristic sounds she began to hear seemed but
to punctuate and emphasize the silence, like echoes in a cave: a faint
rattle of rakes, like the rustle of leaves, and a delicate chink-chink
of gold, like the chirping of young birds just awakened by dawn.
A voice at each table as she drew near or passed made some announcement.
She caught the words distinctly yet not loudly pronounced: "Faites vos
jeux, messieurs.... Rien n'va plus. Onze, noir, impair et manque."
"_Onze_" was one of the numbers the French couple had decided to play.
Mary wondered if it had come at their bidding, and she wished intensely
to see what was going on at the tables inside those close circles of
women's hats and men's shoulders. But to see, meant to push. She was not
bold enough to do that, and kept moving on observantly, hoping always to
discover some island less populous than others.
Now she began to pick individuals out of the crowd. The number of types
seemed countless. It was as if each country on earth had been called
upon to contribute as many as it could spare of unusual and striking,
even astonishing, specimens of humanity, on purpose to provide eccentric
or ornamental features of this strange, world's variety show.
There were some lovely, and a few singularly beautiful, women from
northern and southern lands. Peter had said that one could "tell
Americans by their chins," which were firmer and more expressive of
energy than other chins, and Englishwomen by their straight noses, which
looked as if they had been handed down as precious heirlooms from
aristocratic ancestresses. The mellow light gilded many such chins and
such noses, and shone into soft dark eyes such as only the Latin races
have. Mary fancied she could tell French from Italian women, Spanish
from Austrian, Hungarian from Russian or German types. Almost invariably
the pretty women and the good-looking men were well dressed. Only the
plain and ugly ones seemed not to care for appearances. But there were
more plain people than handsome ones; and dowdy forms strove jealously
to hide the charming figures, as dark clouds swallow up shining stars.
All faces, however, no matter how beautiful or how repulsive, how old or
how young, had a strange family likeness in their expression, it seemed
to Mary; a tense eagerness, such as before her novitiate she had seen on
the faces of Lady MacMillan's guests sometimes when they had settled
down seriously to play bridge.
She had expected to see unhappy and wildly excited faces, because, Peter
said, people often lost or won fortunes in these rooms in a single
night; but no one in this moving crowd looked either very miserable or
very radiant. They did not even appear to be greatly excited, yet most
of them seemed absorbed, as if they listened for a sound which would
mean something of vital importance; or else they had an air of fearing
that they had missed the all-essential signal which might never come
again.
It was not the "high season" yet, Mary's waiter at the Paris had said,
and the "_vrai monde_" would not come in its greatest rush until after
Christmas and the New Year; yet the Casino was filled with a throng of
persons many of whom looked immensely rich and important, and none of
whom, at worst, was shabby. Even those who were dowdy appeared
well-to-do. Mary saw that it was not necessary to gamble in groups. Men
and even women, all alone, pushed their way through the thick wall of
hats and shoulders round the table, sometimes being lost altogether, or
sometimes emerging again in three or four minutes to scurry across the
shining expanse of floor to another table. By and by, when she began to
feel calmer, Mary ventured near a table in the middle of the room,
within full sight of doors which led to other rooms: a long vista
straight ahead, where all the decorations seemed new and fresh, and a
light white as silver streamed from hanging lamps like diamond pendants
and necklaces for giantesses or goddesses of fortune. So different was
the colour of this light from that of the first great _salle_, that a
silver wall seemed built against a wall of gold.
Standing outside the circle at the table, new sounds in the silence
struck Mary's ear, not emphasizing the heavy silence, as did the
delicate chinking of coins and the announcements of roulette numbers,
but jarring and ruffling its smooth surface: little sudden rustlings and
squabblings, disputes between players in French or German, sharp and
mean, yet insignificant as the quarrelling of a nestful of birds in the
ample peace of a spreading beech tree.
Now and then there seemed a chance that Mary might find a place in the
back row at a table, but some one else, also watching, invariably darted
in ahead of her. Each time the hope came, her heart gave a bound, and
the blood sang in her ears. She was astonished at her excitement, which
seemed exaggerated beyond reason, and ridiculous, yet she could not
conquer it; and the trembling that ran through her body made her knees
feel very weak, after she had stood for perhaps half an hour. Looking
round, she noticed that there were a good many brown leather-covered
seats along the mirrored and gilded walls. Most of these were fully
occupied by resting men and women, some very old and tired looking,
others eagerly counting money, or jotting down notes in little books or
on cards. As she looked, an extraordinary woman much bejewelled, with a
face a century old under bright red hair, and a hat for a lovely young
girl, jumped abruptly up from the seat nearest Mary, and almost ran to
one of the tables, where she flung herself into the crowd, like a diver
into a wave. Her place on the bench was left empty, and Mary took it, to
follow the example of others and count her money while resting.
Sitting down, she had on one side a young and pretty woman in a charming
dress and hat, more suitable for a past June than a present December,
even a Riviera December. Her face, too, which she turned with a gaze of
interest on Mary and her costume, was slightly, pathetically faded, like
the petals of a white rose gathered while in bud and pressed between the
pages of a book. She was like a charming wax doll which had lost its
colour by being placed too near a warm fire.
On the other side was a very old man, gray as a ghost, who showed no
sign of knowing that he had a new neighbour. Everything about him was
gray: his thin, concave face, his expressionless eyes, his sparse hair
and straggling moustache, his clothes, and his hands, knotted on the
back like the roots of trees. His grayness and the bleak remoteness of
his air made him seem unreal as a spirit come back to haunt the scene of
long-ago triumphs or defeats. Mary could almost have persuaded herself
that he did not exist, and that the pale form and glassy eyes were
visible to her alone.
She took her purse from a bag of gold and silver beads she had bought in
the Galerie Charles Trois, and counted her money. She had a little more
than five hundred francs, and wondered what could be done with that sum
at roulette. Even the sound of tinkling gold and silver did not attract
the dead gray eyes to Mary; but perhaps it broke some dreary dream, for
the old man got up stiffly as if in protest, and walked away with the
gait of an automaton.
"Heaven be praised!" murmured in French the weary white rose on Mary's
other side; "he brings bad luck. But perhaps he will take it away with
him."
Mary realized that her neighbour was speaking to her, and turned with a
smile of encouragement, thankful to find some one who looked kind, and
would perhaps tell her things.
The pretty woman went on, without waiting to be answered: "He is like a
galvanized corpse; and indeed, he may be one, for he ought to have died
long ago. Have you ever heard his story?"
"No," Mary said. "I have only just come here."
"For the first time?" The other's face brightened oddly.
"Yes, it is my first time."
"And you are alone?"
"Quite alone."
"Poor little one! But that will not be for long."
"I don't know yet how long I shall stay."
"Oh! I did not mean quite that. But let it pass. Shall I tell you the
story of the old man? It will interest you, if you don't know Monte
Carlo. Nothing is too strange to happen here. It is only ordinary things
which never happen in this place, Mademoiselle."
"I have a friend who said something like that. Please tell me the
story."
"I'll make it short, because you will wish to play, is it not? And if
you like, I will teach you the game. That old ghost is an Englishman.
Some day he will come into money and a title. Meanwhile he is supported
by the Casino. Always, morning, noon and night, year in and year out, he
is in these rooms; but he is not allowed to play. If he put one
five-franc piece on the tables, biff! would go his pension. Twenty-five
years it is since he came, they say. I have been here myself but three,
and it is a lifetime! It spoils one for other things, somehow. He lost
everything at the tables one night, all those years ago; so he crept
down to a lonely place on the shore, and cutting his throat, at the same
instant threw himself into the sea. But he could not die. The salt
water brought him to life. He was found and nursed by a fisherman. When
the Casino people heard what had happened they had pity for the
unfortunate one. They are not without hearts, these messieurs! Ever
since they have supported him. When he comes into his fortune, perhaps
he will pay them--who knows? But in any case, he will disappear and be
no more seen. We think he is a spy."
"A spy?" Mary repeated. "What would a spy do here?"
"My poor amateur! There are many. For one thing, they watch for thieves:
people who claim the money of others as their own, at the tables. That
is quite a way of living. Sometimes it goes very well. But it is a
little dangerous. Do you want to play, Mademoiselle? You are sure to
have luck on your first night. Even I used to have luck at first."
"Have you none now?" Mary asked, pityingly.
"Oh, I have no longer even the money to try my luck--to see whether it
has come back. Yet once I won twenty thousand francs, all from one louis
at trente et quarante, and at one séance. That was a night! a memory to
live on. And at present it is well I have it to live on, as there is
nothing else."
"Oh, how sad, how sad!" exclaimed Mary. "If only you would let me help
you a little--in some way."
"You are very good, but of course I could not accept charity," said the
pale rose, looking down at her faded lace and muslin finery. "Still, if
I bring you luck at the game, and you win, I shall feel I have earned
something, is it not?"
"Yes, indeed," Mary assured her, delighted with the simple solution.
"But it seems impossible to get near a table."
"It is not impossible," said the other, a gleam bright as the flash of a
needle darting from her jade gray eyes. "Many of those people are only
watching. They must give way to serious players. You will see! Shall it
be trente et quarante or roulette? Roulette, you can tell by the name,
is played with a wheel. Trente et quarante with cards--and for that you
must go to another room, for all is roulette here. In the card game a
louis is the smallest stake. At roulette it is five francs."
"I have only five hundred francs," Mary announced.
"Then I advise roulette. Besides, it is more amusing. Never can one tire
of seeing the wheel go round, and wondering where the dear little white
ball will come to rest."
"Yes, I feel I shall like roulette better," Mary decided.
"That is right. You have temperament, Mademoiselle. Already you listen
to your feelings. I too, have a strong feeling. It is, that we shall be
friends. My name is Madame d'Ambre--Madeleine d'Ambre. And yours?"
"Mary Grant."
"Madame or Mademoiselle?"
"Mademoiselle, of course." Mary blushed.
It seemed almost shocking that any one could even fancy she might be
married, she who was just out of the cloister, almost a nun.
"Ah, here one is so often Madame while still quite young. Now, let us
follow that tall, _chic_ Monsieur who has but one eye and one ear. If we
can play what he plays, we are sure to win. Often, when near him, I have
prayed that even one five-franc piece might come my way, for since he
lost an eye and an ear he never loses money. It was different when he
was here a few years ago, before he went out to the east, where he had
his mysterious bereavement, no one knows quite what, but it is said that
he loved an eastern girl, and was smuggled into a harem. In old days he
did nothing but lose, lose."
Mary glanced at the person indicated--a tall man in evening dress, whose
features would have been agreeable if it had not been for a black patch
over one eye and, on the same side of the head, a black pad over the
ear, fastened on by a thin elastic cord. Then she glanced away again,
feeling faintly sick. "No, I can't follow him," she said. "Not to win a
thousand pounds."
The lady with the pretty name smiled her sad, tired little smile. "You
must not turn pale for so small a thing," she laughed. "There are a
hundred people in these rooms to-night far stranger than he. I could
tell you things! But see, three Germans are going from the table in
front of us. When three Germans move, they leave much room. Keep close
to me; that is all you need do."
Mary obeyed in silence. She was grateful to her guide, yet somehow she
was unable to like her as well as at first. Fragile as Madame d'Ambre
appeared, she must have had a metallic strength of will, if not of
muscle, for quietly yet relentlessly she insinuated herself in front of
other people grouped round the table. Mary would have retreated,
abashed, if she had not feared to hurt her new friend's feelings; but
rather than be ungracious, she clung, soon finding herself wedged behind
a chair and in front of two German ladies.