He was taller than Dick, and almost pushing his way to a place, he saw Mary seated at the opposite side of the table. She sat at the left of a croupier, who was helping her to place her numerous stakes. Beside her was Lady Dauntrey, and behind her chair, tall and pale and very haggard, Lord Dauntrey stood. Vanno guessed, with a mingling of relief and regret, that Mary must have gone to live at the Villa Bella Vista.
The ball spun round, rested in the pocket of number 11, and all Mary's stakes were swept away.
"That's the eighth time in succession she's lost maximums round twenty-four," mumbled a man close to Vanno's shoulder, in a young, weak voice.
"She deserves it, for being an idiot," petulantly replied a woman, in French, though the man had spoken in English. "I was her mascotte. I showed her how to play and how to win; but I was not good enough for her when she began making grand friends. Some women are so disloyal! She has hurt me to the heart."
Vanno glanced down impatiently, and saw the woman who had been with Mary on her first night at the Casino. He remembered the faded, white-rose face, with its peevish crumples that were not yet lines, and the false little smile that tried to draw attention away from them. He noticed that she was no longer shabby, but wore a smart new dress and hat, with a huge boa of ostrich feathers half covering her thin, bare neck. There was a glint of jewels about her as she moved. The man with the young, weak voice gazed at her admiringly, with a half-pitiful, half-comic air of pride in being seen with so chic a creature.
"Never you mind. We men ain't disloyal, anyhow," he consoled her. She smiled at him pathetically, and his pale blue eyes, like those of a faded Dresden china shepherd, returned her look with ecstasy.
"That wretched boy will marry the woman," was the thought that jumped into Vanno's mind. He recognized the insignificant face, with its receding chin and forehead, as that of a very young baronet, the last of a degenerate family, weak of intellect, strong only in his craze for jewels and horses. He had been in love with two or three English girls, and one noted American beauty, but all, though comparatively poor, had refused him, saying that one "must draw the line somewhere, and he was the limit." Madeleine d'Ambre would not be fastidious. The brief revelation, like something seen in the flare of a match that quickly dies out, struck Vanno with pity and disgust. But a youth of this calibre was sure sooner or later to drift to Monte Carlo; and perhaps the Frenchwoman's leading strings would be better for him than none.
Again the wheel spun round, and Mary lost several piles of gold and notes. It seemed to Vanno that she was changed not only in expression, but even in features. The outline of her face looked sharper, thinner, less girlish. Her eyes, very wide open, were bright, but not with their own happy brightness, like a reflection of sunlight. They were more like thick glass through which a fire can be seen dimly burning: and she looked astonished, piteous, as a child looks when it has been seized and whipped for a fault committed in ignorance. She seemed to be saying to herself dazedly, "What has happened to me? Why should I be punished?" High on each cheek burned a round spot of bright rose colour.
Sometimes Lady Dauntrey spoke to her, and Lord Dauntrey bent down and appeared to advise. At first Mary shook her head, with a quivering smile; but when the piles of money continued to be swept away, she lost confidence in herself, and accepted their suggestions. Evidently she tried to follow the new plan of action, whatever it was, but her luck did not change for the better. Almost invariably her stakes, no matter where placed, were taken from her. Even the croupiers looked surprised. From time to time they darted at her glances of interest.
A great longing to be near, to protect her with love and sympathy, rushed over Vanno. He forgot that she was angry with him, or that he had given her cause for anger. He remembered only his love, and the instinctive knowledge he had in spite of all, that her heart was for him. He felt, unreasonably yet intensely, that if he were to sit at the table where she could see him and receive the magnetic current of his love, she would come to herself; that she would stop fighting this demon of misfortune; that she would be filled with strength and comfort, and would know what was best to do.