"I can't," said Aldo. "I can't go in—not until this miserable dole is paid back. You must go. They will let you in. Go on."
Nancy rose, flushed and trembling. "What do I do? How do I play it?"
"Oh, anyhow. It makes no difference," said Aldo, with his face in his hands, suddenly realizing that they three possessed in the world one hundred and ninety francs, and a debt of one hundred and twenty-three. He turned to the child.
"Say a number, Anne-Marie! Any old number!"
Anne-Marie did not understand.
"You know your numbers, darling," said Nancy, "that grandmamma taught you."
"Oh, yeth," said Anne-Marie. "One, two, three, four."
"Stop. All right," said Aldo. "Nancy, go in and play—at any table you like—the quatre premiers and quatre en plein. That gives you zero, too. Go ahead! Les quatre premiers and quatre en plein. Remember. Tell the croupier to do it for you."
Nancy went straight in, and to the left, where the men sat who had laughed at her the night before. They recognized her, and gave her a card at once.
She went into the rooms. Chink, chink; chink, chink. She went to the table on the left. A red-haired croupier sat at the end of the table nearest her, and she went to him, and gave him one of the fifty-franc notes.