How splendid it would be to come to Basil and to tell him that they could be married at once! That funds for the launching of the great invention were forthcoming, that all was to end as happily as some old song!
About six o'clock Ethel went into her mother's room. The rest had refreshed her. Her eyes were glowing with excitement, and with her long hair falling over her dressing-gown she seemed the personification of radiant hope.
"Now, what are we to do, mother?" she said excitedly. "How do you feel?"
The older woman was seated in the one arm-chair the little bedroom of the pension boasted, and was anxiously scrutinising a bundle of faded papers covered with figures and bold masculine handwriting.
"It is certain, Ethel!" she said. "I have been going through your father's figures for the hundredth time. I am sure it can't fail. You know he only invented this particular system just before he died, and we never had an opportunity to try it properly."
Ethel nodded. "I feel just as you do, mother, dear," she answered. "It can't fail. But what are we to do? Are you thoroughly rested?"
"I feel in better health," the old lady answered, "than I have felt for years. Excitement would keep me up if nothing else would, but, as it is, I have no trace of fatigue. What's the use of spending the evening in this dull pension with these third-rate people, for such of the guests as I have seen are rather a seedy-looking lot, and Madame de Bonville is just the ordinary Southern Frenchwoman who keeps a place of this sort? No! We will dress, have dinner, and take a cab to the Casino. There will be no difficulty about obtaining our tickets for this evening. We shall have to renew them each day, until we have been here for some time—if, indeed, it is necessary to remain here. After a week or two they give you a ticket for a month, but I don't suppose we shall need that."
"Then we are to begin to-night!" Ethel cried, a flush mounting in her cheeks and her voice ringing with anticipation.
The elder lady smiled. "We will not begin the system to-night," she answered. "That, I do think, would be unwise. We will take a louis or two and get a place at one of the tables, if we can, and just see what happens. I want you to get accustomed to a scene which will seem extraordinarily strange to you. We will take it that we are merely reconnoitring this evening, and begin serious play upon the morrow. Dinner is at half-past seven, so go and prepare yourself, my child, and then come and help me."
Ethel left the room and crossed the passage to her own, singing for sheer lightness of heart. Already the beauty of the South had caught hold of her, and such glimpses of it as she had seen only intensified her mood. In her innocence she had not the slightest misgiving. She would have laughed to scorn anyone who had told her that there was a chance of losing the little unexpected capital that had come to them from the lottery.