"Impossible! You may not have money enough. On other chances the maximums are much larger."
Mary, confused and fearful of being too late, did not stop to reflect or argue. "Nine louis on each of the chances, then," she panted.
Madame d'Ambre, reflecting selfishly that even if all stakes lost there would still be a good sum to divide from the last winnings, began placing money in desperate haste, the croupier delaying for an instant his rien ne va plus, while one of his fellows helped in putting on the gold. Others, who had finished staking over each other's hats and shoulders, and the whole ring of watchers outside, awaited the decision of Mary's destiny with almost as keen interest as if it were their own.
"Vingt-quatre, noir, pair et passe."
A murmur rose, and went to Mary's head like wine. This seemed a miracle, performed for her. Unconscious of irreverence, she thought that surely the saints had worked this wonder. She forgot that, because she won, others must lose.
"It is marvellous! But these blessed amateurs! It is always they who have the great luck. Twice running—and after twenty-four had been spun just before twenty-one."
The numbers were all marked in their right colours with roulette pencils on little cards, or in well-kept notebooks by the players. Every one knew what had "come out" at the table for many past coups.
"If you'll back twenty-four again, I'll go on it, too," said, in English, a young man in the chair at Mary's right. He was a brown, well-groomed, clean-shaven youth, whose hair was so light that it looked straw-coloured in contrast with his sunburnt skin. "It's en chaleur, as they say of numbers when they keep coming up. It may come a third time running. I've seen it happen. Five repetitions is the record. What do you say?"
"I meant to play twenty-four again, anyway," Mary answered, with the peculiar soft obstinacy which had opened the gates of Saint Ursula-of-the-Lake and brought her to Monte Carlo.
"You are plucky!"