The boy smiled airily, and returned the empty book to his pocket.
Lucy looked at her companions, but none of them had noticed the little tragedy. Sir Douglas led the way to another table, and finally he handed a five-franc piece to each of the girls. To his mind it was a part of the programme that they should be able to say they had tried their luck.
Lucy hesitated, strongly tempted. Dim visions floated before her mind of making "pounds and pounds," and handing them over to that poor boy. Then she shook her head.
"My father would not like it," she whispered.
Sir Douglas shrugged his shoulders. Verily, there was no accounting for taste. How a man could allow his daughter to spend years in the dissecting-room, and in the surgical wards of a hospital,—subject her, in fact, to the necessity of spending her life in an atmosphere of carbolic,—and object to her laying a big silver counter on a green cloth, just for once, was more than he could divine.
Evelyn hesitated also. But it would be such fun to say she had done it. She took the coin and laid it on the table. "Where would you put it?" she whispered rather helplessly to Lucy.
Lucy knew nothing of the game, but she had been watching its progress attentively, and her eye had been trained to quick and close observation. Annoyed at Evelyn's slowness, and without stopping to think, she took the cue and pushed the coin into place. It was just in time. In another instant Evelyn's stake was doubled.
"There, that will do," said Sir Douglas, as Evelyn seemed inclined to repeat the performance. "I don't want to see your cheeks like those of that lady opposite."
A gentleman stood aside to let them leave the table, and as they passed he held out his hand to Lucy. She did not take it at once, but looked up at Sir Douglas in pretty consternation.
"There!" she said. "I knew it! This is one of my father's churchwardens."