"The sight of these palms brings good luck and today, which is gay Easter, I shall break the bank."
* * *
In the game hall, he regarded at first the diverse throng which pressed about the tables...
François des Ygrées approached a table and played. He lost. The invisible Mammon had come back and spoke sharply each time they erased a deal:
"Thou hast lost!"
And François saw the crowd no more, his head was turning, he placed louis, packages of bills, on one square, diagonally, transversally. He played a long time losing as much as he wanted to.
He turned away at last and saw the whole brilliant hall where the players still pressed about the tables as before. Noticing a young man whose chagrined face revealed that he had had no luck, François smiled at him and asked whether he had lost.
The young man replied angrily:
"You too? A Russian just won more than two hundred thousand francs by my side. Ah! if I only had a hundred francs more, I would make up what I have lost twenty or thirty times over. But Oh, I have beastly luck, I am hoodooed, done for. Imagine..."
And taking François by the arm, he led him toward a divan on which they sat down.