"They never forget to add it to the rest," said the girl.
"Not they," he echoed. "And I wasn't doing so badly at one time. I've a mind to apply for the viatique."
"I shouldn't have the courage."
"Oh, I should. I'd like to get something out of them. I hate the Riviera, anyhow. There's too much scenery all over the place. No rest for the eye."
"But supposing you change your mind, and want come back and try your luck? You couldn't, if you'd taken the viatique."
"Yes I could—when I'd paid it back. It's supposed to be a loan, you know, which you have to repay before you're allowed to play again."
"Oh, I didn't know!"
A group of young men walked past, laughing. "Never saw such a run of luck," said one. "Seventeen on red and I was on it from the first. Glorious place, Monte! Let's drink its health!"
They turned, stared with interest at Mary, and passed on, lowering their voices. She caught the words "something new," but there was no sense in them for her ears. She saw the Dauntreys hurrying to the Casino, with Mrs. Collis and her daughter, and Dodo Wardropp. Two men were with them, both young, and one rather distinguished looking. All were too deeply absorbed in themselves and each other to notice her. The ladies were charmingly dressed, and so were most of the women who passed, all going quickly like the figures of a cinematograph; but some were of the strangest possible types. Mary said to herself that they must be infinitely more interesting in their own secret selves than lookers on could ever know. The hidden realities in all these passionately egotistic selves came to her as she sat watching, in attractive or repellent flashes of light. Then she lost the secret again, and they became mere puppets in a moving show. The only real thing was the Casino, and she began to study the large bright face of it.
Although Mary had never travelled till now, she knew something of architecture from beautiful pictures of ancient Greece and Rome, and Egypt, and of the world's noblest cathedrals, which decorated the schoolroom walls at St. Ursula's-of-the-Lake. This building, it seemed to her, was of no recognized type of architecture. It was neither classic nor Gothic: not Renaissance, Egyptian, nor Moorish. It gave the impression of being a mere fantastic creation of a gay and irresponsible brain. If a confectioner accustomed to work in coloured sugars were to dream of a superlative masterpiece, his exalted fancy might take some such shape as this.