"My poor amateur! There are many. For one thing, they watch for thieves: people who claim the money of others as their own, at the tables. That is quite a way of living. Sometimes it goes very well. But it is a little dangerous. Do you want to play, Mademoiselle? You are sure to have luck on your first night. Even I used to have luck at first."
"Have you none now?" Mary asked, pityingly.
"Oh, I have no longer even the money to try my luck—to see whether it has come back. Yet once I won twenty thousand francs, all from one louis at trente et quarante, and at one séance. That was a night! a memory to live on. And at present it is well I have it to live on, as there is nothing else."
"Oh, how sad, how sad!" exclaimed Mary. "If only you would let me help you a little—in some way."
"You are very good, but of course I could not accept charity," said the pale rose, looking down at her faded lace and muslin finery. "Still, if I bring you luck at the game, and you win, I shall feel I have earned something, is it not?"
"Yes, indeed," Mary assured her, delighted with the simple solution. "But it seems impossible to get near a table."
"It is not impossible," said the other, a gleam bright as the flash of a needle darting from her jade gray eyes. "Many of those people are only watching. They must give way to serious players. You will see! Shall it be trente et quarante or roulette? Roulette, you can tell by the name, is played with a wheel. Trente et quarante with cards—and for that you must go to another room, for all is roulette here. In the card game a louis is the smallest stake. At roulette it is five francs."
"I have only five hundred francs," Mary announced.
"Then I advise roulette. Besides, it is more amusing. Never can one tire of seeing the wheel go round, and wondering where the dear little white ball will come to rest."
"Yes, I feel I shall like roulette better," Mary decided.