She rose, pale and suddenly tired. "I won't play any more," she said, in a little voice, like a child's.
"Oh, why?" asked the young man with the straw-coloured hair.
"I don't know why," she answered. "Only I don't want to."
"Your money!" exclaimed Madame d'Ambre. "We must have all the gold put into mille notes, or you cannot carry it."
For an instant Mary had forgotten the money and the necessity of taking it away, but Madame d'Ambre, who had now firmly identified her own interests with those of her protégée, attended to the practical duties of the partnership. She was somewhat disagreeably conscious that the young man's eyes were fixed upon her as she collected her friend's enormous winnings. As people made way for the Frenchwoman and her starlike companion to pass, this man gathered up his small store of gold and silver, and followed. On the outskirts of the crowd stood the Dauntreys and their party. Mary and Madame d'Ambre passed close to them, but the heroine of the moment was too intensely excited to recognize any one. She walked as if on air, her hands full of notes, some of which she was stuffing into her gold-beaded bag.
"Why, it's the girl in the train who said she was going to Florence," exclaimed Dodo Wardropp. "Can she be the one who's made the sensation?"
"Yes, it's she," said Lady Dauntrey. "See how they're looking at her, and pointing her out. I wonder if it's true she's won thousands of pounds?"
No one answered. Lord Dauntrey had slipped quietly away from the others, and found a place at a table near enough to play over some one's head. This was the first time he had found a chance to test his new system, except on the toy roulette wheel. He began staking five-franc pieces, and writing down notes in a small book. The bored look was burned out of his weary eyes. They brightened, and a more healthful colour slowly drove away his unnatural paleness.
The others, who had been playing in the new rooms, did not follow or look for him. They stared at every one who seemed worth staring at. The two Americans and Dodo expected Lady Dauntrey to know everybody. It was for this, partly, that they were paying large sums to her, and they felt a depressed need of getting their money's worth. So far the arrangements for their comfort at the Villa Bella Vista were disappointing. Still, two young men of title were there, and that was something, although one of them was only an Austrian count, and the other no better than a baronet. But Lord Dauntrey promised for to-morrow morning Dom Ferdinand de Trevanna, the Pretender to an historic throne.
Dodo, according to Miss Collis, had "grabbed" the English baronet, and left her only the Austrian count, who looked younger than any man could really be, and had a wasp-waist which, when he bowed—as he did irritatingly often—seemed liable to snap in two. It was if anything more slender than her own, and she disliked him for it. Lady Dauntrey had Mrs. Collis on her hands, and looked sombrely discontented. But she waked up at sight of Mary. The long, pale eyes between black fringes followed the blue and silver-gold figure with silent interest. Then the handsome face became subtle and greedy.