I returned to the Casino.
"Monsieur," said a handsome woman, whose eyes had proved pitfalls for many an unwary one, "only one louis, and look! I know a way to make Monsieur le Croupier push the rake toward me. Eh?"
"Here," said I, giving her the louis. She flew away, and I laughed. Gambling never had any dignity or disinterestedness.
Of all those I had left at the table only three remained. The other faces were new. And how that pile of gold and bank-notes at the side of the croupier had grown!
A crabbed old lady arose, crumpling her system card in her hand, and I popped into her vacant chair. I cast about a casual glance. Seated next to me was a very beautiful young girl. She was alone, and appeared most emphatically out of place in this gilded Hades. Her eyes were blue and moist and starlike, but there was fever in her cheeks and lips. There was very little gold before her, and this dwindled as I watched. She was playing 17, 20 and 32, persistently and doggedly; and each time the rake drew in her money I could see her delicate nostrils quiver and her lips draw to a thin line. From time to time she cast a hasty glance over her shoulder, a shamed and hunted look. In watching her I came very near forgetting why I was seated at the table.
"Make your game, gentlemen; make your game,—the game is made."
Whirr-rr-rr! went the evil sphere. It dropped into 20. The girl at my side gasped, but too soon. The ball bounded out, and zig-zagged till it rolled complacently into the zero. The young girl had played her last louis and lost. A chivalric impulse came to me to thrust half of my money toward her. I had done as much for a woman of the half-world. But the gambler's selfishness checked the generous deed. The blind Madonna was biding her time, as you shall presently see.
The girl arose, brushing her eyes. She turned, and in a moment had disappeared in the moving throng of sightseers.
"Make your game, gentlemen!"
I came back to the sordidness of things. 17, 20, 32; where had I seen this combination before?—Good heavens, that was not possible!