Seeing that she had no intention of passing on the introduction, Clotilde et Cie. retired gracefully, each of the four a thousand francs richer and a thousand times happier than she had been five minutes before.
"What about supper?" said Hannaford. "Gambling always makes me hungry. I'm in luck to-night. Won't you three be my guests at Ciro's?"
"You are always in luck nowadays," sighed Madame d'Ambre. A shadow seemed to pass over the stolid face of the man, but she did not see it. "Naturally we accept the kind invitation, is it not so, dear Mademoiselle?"
"I must be at Ciro's anyhow, about midnight," said Carleton, "for Schuyler asked me to meet him there for a Welsh rabbit after the opera. But I'll be delighted to go over and sit with you till he comes." He had the pleasant drawl of a Southerner.
"Oh, you're very, very kind," stammered Mary. "But I"—she hesitated, and glanced appealingly at Madame d'Ambre—"I think it's rather late, and I shall have to go home."
"Home?" echoed Hannaford, questioningly.
"My hotel," she explained.
As Madame d'Ambre drew her friend aside for a murmur of advice, the two men looked at each other, Carleton puzzled, Hannaford with raised eyebrows. "I think they're both charming," the American remarked in a low voice. "That little Madame d'Ambre isn't nearly as pretty as Miss Grant, but she's fetching, and looks a bit down on her luck, as if she'd had trouble."
"Perhaps she has," said Hannaford.
"But, dear Mademoiselle," Madeleine was pleading at a little distance, "why won't you go to supper? Do! It would be so pleasant. I have so little happiness; and this would at least give me an hour of distraction."