Round went the wheel again, and the little ball hopped about as before.
Delapine did not move his head but continued to gaze steadily on the ball.
Five times running Renée repeated the process, each time leaving the maximum—6,000 frs.—on each even chance, and the maximum on the single number. At last she ceased for a moment and counted the notes in hand. She had won 120,000 francs.
All this time Delapine had remained motionless with his eyes fixed like a carved Buddha. At length he leaned over and whispered to Renée, who immediately transferred the maximum stakes to three fresh numbers and different squares.
The whole thing was done so quietly and so unobtrusively that only an onlooker who had been specially regarding him could have noticed that Delapine had made the slightest movement.
Occasionally he would take half-a-dozen gold pieces and rapidly throw them on to as many squares or numbers, without troubling his head in the least as to whether they won or lost.
But Renée was winning so fast that she became the centre of attraction for the crowd which grew more and more dense at the table, little dreaming that it was the quiet professor at her side and not the player herself who was manipulating the stakes, and who was responsible for all her marvellous good fortune.
Strangely enough, Delapine lost his own little stakes more often than he won, as he allowed them to remain on any squares they chanced to fall on. Now and again a coin would drop on the line between two squares—à cheval—or covering four numbers—en carré. Sometimes the croupier would sweep them into the bank—sometimes Delapine would receive eleven or eight times his stake. When this happened he would quietly pick up his winnings so as to compensate for his other losses, but as often as not he did not trouble to collect his winnings, but allowed them to remain on the table until they were swept off by the remorseless rake.
"Look at that fool of a man," whispered one of the lady players, pointing to Delapine. "He sits there staring at the wheel like an idiot, and actually forgot to take up his money, and now it's all swept away. What a fool. Well, it serves him right."
"Yes," replied her companion, "he's evidently a bit soft in the head. What a pity he didn't ask me to play for him."