"I wish I ever had one!" sighed Lady Dauntrey, hesitating over one of her big silver coins. "Do tell me where to put this. You're so wonderful, you might bring even me a stroke of luck."
"But I should be so distressed if I made you lose," Mary said, as gravely as if the five-franc piece in question had been a mille note. "But—well—if it were mine, I rather think I should try ten. I've no inspiration for myself this time; but I seem to see ten floating in the air around you, and that's the way my inspirations come. I see numbers or colours, and then I play on them."
"I'll try it!" Eve exclaimed. "But will you put the money on for me? I want all your luck, and none of my own."
Mary pushed the five-franc piece on to the number 10, using a rake of her own which Dick Carleton had given her. It was a glorified rake, which he had ordered specially for her, made of ebony with the initials "M. G." set into it in little sapphires, her favourite stones.
Ten came up, and Lady Dauntrey was enchanted. She even felt an impulse of gratitude, and a superstitious conviction that this girl would be for her a bringer of good fortune.
"I've so often watched your play, and wanted to tell you how much I admired it," she said, "but I never quite had the courage."
Lady Dauntrey did not look like a woman who would lack courage for anything she wished to do, but Mary saw no reason to disbelieve her word, and indeed did not judge or criticise at all, except by instinct; and people had only to look sad or complain of their ill luck to arouse a sympathy stronger than any instinct against them.
"I think it's very nice of you to speak," she replied, politely. Both murmured in subdued tones, in order not to annoy other players.
"I recognized you, of course, the first time I saw you in the Casino," Lady Dauntrey went on, "as the lovely girl who came south in the train with us. We've all been longing to know you."
This was untrue. Anxious to propitiate Society as far as possible, Eve had avoided recognizing Mary, who might be looked upon as a doubtful person—a young girl, always strikingly dressed, living alone at a fashionable and gay hotel, playing high at the Casino, and picking up odd acquaintances. But now Lady Dauntrey was abandoning all hope that Society might let her pass over its threshold, and she was willing to defy it for the sake of money. This girl was at least a lady, which Dodo was not, nor was Mrs. Ernstein, the stockbroker's widow. Eve thought it would be a good thing if Miss Grant could be persuaded to come and stay at the Villa Bella Vista in the room left vacant by the Collises. Mary was rather flattered, but she now had an inspiration to play, and did not want to go on talking. "I think ten will come up again, or else eleven," she said, with the misty look in her eyes which was always there at the Casino, or when her thoughts were intent on gambling. "I shall play the two numbers à cheval."