Ethel found herself in an enormous salon of great height, and with a polished parquet floor. It resembled nothing so much as an immense ball-room in some royal palace. The walls were covered by huge pictures let into the gilded panelling, separated from each other by pilaster after pilaster of gold. The ceilings, also, where electric lights glowed brilliantly, were painted, and the general effect was one of almost overpowering magnificence. Beyond this huge salon she saw, under an immense archway, there was another and even larger one crossing it at right angles, and beyond that still another. The size and splendour of the place made her catch her breath and dazzled her eyes. "How wonderful!" she whispered to her mother.
Her next impression was that she was in some church! Despite the gorgeous decoration certainly not in the least ecclesiastical, the size and shape, the curious hush and silence that pervaded everything, helped the impression. There was only the very lowest murmur of conversation perceptible. Women in astonishingly gorgeous toilets, with gold purses hanging from their wrists by jewel-studded chains, moved slowly up and down the parquet floor with a rustling of skirts. The air was full of mingled perfume and suggested that odour of incense in a cathedral.
As all these impressions crowded into her mind, the girl's eyes became more used to the surroundings, and she saw, at intervals under the high dome-like roof, long tables were set, each one as long as two billiard tables. There were four of them in this first salon, and many more stretched away in the vista of brilliance. The air was quite clear, nobody was smoking, and she could see everything very distinctly.
Around each table was a thick cluster of people, men and women, almost entirely hiding it from view.
She turned to the table nearest her.
Around it, without any intervals, people were sitting in chairs. Behind them stood other people, at some tables two deep. Above the tables were suspended huge lamps with green shades—like the lights over a billiard table, though not so brilliant.
"Why, they are oil lamps!" Ethel said in a low voice to her mother. "How strange and antiquated!"
Mrs. McMahon smiled.
"If they had electric lights immediately over the tables," she said, "or even gas, some of the gangs of bad characters who infest Monte Carlo would find means to cut the pipes or wires, and in the confusion anybody could take what money he pleased." She clutched her daughter's arm tightly. "Child," she said, in an impressive voice, "at any one of these tables at the present moment, lying about, unprotected, in notes and gold, there is at least fifty thousand pounds!"
At that moment the major drew their attention to the fact that at a table immediately ahead of them there was a little stir and movement.