As if she fully realized that her luck had failed her to-night, for several spins she had been guided entirely by Lord Dauntrey. He was directing her play according to his system, to which his faith still desperately clung, though he now admitted to his friends that his own capital was not big enough to test it fairly. His game was upon numbers, columns, and dozens, all at the same time, increasing the stakes, as he said, "with the bank's money," or, in other words, after a win. It was therefore a loss following directly upon a win which was the worst enemy of the system, and occasionally there came a long run of exactly this alternation: win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. It happened so to-night, greatly to his annoyance, as he hoped to interest Miss Grant in his method. Dom Ferdinand was sulkily waiting for more remittances, and amusing himself meanwhile by throwing about a few louis here and there, undirected by his friend Lord Dauntrey. The Marquis de Casablanca had stopped play entirely, perhaps in the hope of setting his patron a wise example. The Collises had never been useful. Dodo Wardropp liked to gamble "on her own," and Mrs. Ernstein, though rich, was a coward when it came to risking her money at the tables. Others in the house made themselves as irritating to Lord Dauntrey in their selfish obstinacy as Dodo; and all his hopes centred upon Mary. She was a lamb whom his wife had cleverly caught in the bushes, a lamb with golden fleece. He would have liked above all things to help her win this first night; but curiously enough she lost monotonously, no matter what game she tried, unless Prince Giovanni Della Robbia pushed money on to some chance where her stake happened to lie. Then and then only she won; so that if she inclined to superstition (as did most women at the tables) she would believe that not Lord Dauntrey but the Roman "brought her luck." Nevertheless she seemed vexed rather than pleased when the Prince (whom Dauntrey knew by sight and name) fixed upon a chance where she had staked. Presently, though she won four times running when this occurred, she kept back her money until the last, staking only just before the croupier's "Rien ne va plus," to prevent Della Robbia from following her lead. At last, she got up impatiently. "I am tired!" she said, in a voice that trembled slightly. "I hardly know what I'm doing."
Mary did not pick up the money—comparatively little—which was the remnant of her losses, and Dauntrey asked sympathetically if she would like him to play for her, according to the plan they had begun to follow out.
"Yes, if you please," she replied, seeming to attach no importance to her answer or to the small pile of gold and notes, all that remained of a hundred thousand francs with which she had begun the evening.
Without another glance at the table, or a flicker of the lashes at Vanno, she turned away; and after a whispered word or two in Lord Dauntrey's ear, Eve went with her, in the direction of the Salle Schmidt.
Vanno had an immediate impulse to rise, but common sense forbade. Mary had so unmistakably shown her dislike of his presence, and the association of his play with hers, that it was impossible for him to follow her. Though he detested Lady Dauntrey, in his heart he preferred her to a man as a companion for Mary, even a man like Dick Carleton; and for the moment the jealousy he could not control was at rest. Seeing that Lord Dauntrey's weary eyes were fixed upon him, he continued to play, as if he had not noticed Mary's going. By and by the game began to absorb him in a way he would not have believed possible. He became excited, with an odd, tense excitement which had an almost fierce joy in it. Never before had he felt an emotion exactly like this, except once, when in India he and a friend had lain in wait for a man-eating tiger, in the night, at the tiger's drinking place. Dimly it amused him to compare this sensation with the other; and it surprised him, too, that he should feel as he felt now; for gambling had always seemed to him not only greedy and sordid and vulgar, but a stupid way of passing the time, unworthy a man or woman of sense and breeding.
To his own amazement, the pleasure of the game was balm for the heartache Mary had made him suffer. He did not forget her, or his repentance, or the determination to right himself in her eyes; yet the hot throb of his anxiety was soothed, as by an opiate. What he felt for Mary was but a part of this keen emotion that flowed through him like a tide.
He remembered the prophecy of his friend the astrologer, in the Libyan desert, that his star in the ascendant would bring him good fortune this month of December. Certainly he had not found luck in love. Perhaps it was to come to him through gambling. He wondered if there could be any possible connection between the stars and the actions of a man, or the chances of a game like roulette. Though his studies of the stars had been confined to astronomy, the romance in him, and the dreamer's love of mystery, refused to shut the door on belief in another branch of the same science. It was enormously interesting to think that perhaps the stars, the planets, controlled this tiny sphere of ivory in its mad dash round the revolving wheel. Since the whole universe was made up of marvels almost beyond credence, who with certainty could say "no?"
Vanno was not rich. He had no more than thirty thousand francs a year, left him by his mother, and had refused an extra allowance from the Duke. It had been his pride to live within his income, all through his travels, and despite his love of collecting rare books. His father had given him his observatory at Monte Della Robbia, but nothing else of importance. His invention was beginning to bring him in a little, but it would never make a fortune; and he was not one who could afford a "flutter" at Monte Carlo without counting the cost. To-night, however, after winning some thousands of francs, it did not occur to him—as it might if some other man in his circumstances had been concerned—that it would be wise to stop. The spin of the wheel began to exert a fascination over his mind, appealing to all that was adventurous in him. Not once was he conscious of putting on a stake for the sake of the money it might gain; not once did he hesitate from fear of loss. It was the call of the unknown that lured him, the thrilling doubt as to where the ball would stop.
The little dancing white thing, magical as a silver bullet, seemed a miniature incarnation of destiny, spinning his fate. Always Vanno was pricked by the desire to try again, and see if he could once more foretell the result. There lay the poignant, the indescribable charm: in not knowing.
He saw now that he had misjudged gamblers in believing them all to be mercenary, at least at the moment of gambling. Some might be so, many perhaps; but he began to realize that the chief appeal was to the imaginative temperament, such as he knew his own, and guessed Mary's, to be.