“To think that that accursed zero should have turned up now!” she sobbed. “The accursed, accursed thing! And, it is all your fault,” she added, rounding upon me in a frenzy. “It was you who persuaded me to cease staking upon it.”
“But, Madame, I only explained the game to you. How am I to answer for every mischance which may occur in it?”
“You and your mischances!” she whispered threateningly. “Go! Away at once!”
“Farewell, then, Madame.” And I turned to depart.
“No—stay,” she put in hastily. “Where are you going to? Why should you leave me? You fool! No, no... stay here. It is I who was the fool. Tell me what I ought to do.”
“I cannot take it upon myself to advise you, for you will only blame me if I do so. Play at your own discretion. Say exactly what you wish staked, and I will stake it.”
“Very well. Stake another four thousand gülden upon the red. Take this banknote to do it with. I have still got twenty thousand roubles in actual cash.”
“But,” I whispered, “such a quantity of money—”
“Never mind. I cannot rest until I have won back my losses. Stake!”
I staked, and we lost.