The changer handed her two hundred-franc notes, which she crumpled in her hand.
"I must find a hundred thousand francs from somewhere!" she cried, departing. She was talking to herself. As she moved away a stout, oldish man with a thick lower lip, pearl studs in his shirt-front, and a gleaming white waistcoat, joined her, and they disappeared together.
Lilian stared after her in amazement. Felix's winnings suddenly seemed very insignificant. Still when he received six fine fresh thousand-franc notes, besides some small notes, in exchange for valueless discs, and handed to her one of the fine fresh notes--"That's for saving me from myself!"--she was impressed anew. A palace of magic, the baccarat rooms! The real thing, gambling!
"What do you want to do now?" he asked. "Dance? No? Well, I'll do anything you like, anything, the most absurd thing. Is that talking?"
They were moving somewhat aimlessly down the grand staircase.
"Felix, darling," she murmured, "let's go for a motor run in the hills. There's a lovely moon. I should so love it." She desired to be alone with him precisely as she had been alone with him in the taxi after their first dinner. She had a fancy for just that and nothing else. She pictured them together in the car, in the midst of gigantic nature and in the brilliant night.
"But it will be cold!" he protested.
"It wasn't cold when we came in here--it was quite warm--you said so," she replied softly. "But just as you please. I don't mind." And into the acquiescent charm of her voice she dropped one drop of angelic resentment--one single drop; not because he objected to gratifying her, but because she knew he was merely fussing himself about his throat and his health generally.
"We'll go, by all means. It won't take long," he yielded affectionately, without reserve.
She pressed his arm. She had won. He began to suspect that she was overwrought--perhaps by the first sight of the spectacle of gambling on a great scale--and he soothed her accordingly. Half a dozen automobiles were waiting and willing to take them into the hills.