Jocelyn

by John Galsworthy

Giles, who had not caught the words of the whispered conversation, felt a sudden pang; he grew very pale, and dropped a little further behind. As Jocelyn went up the steps, she turned round and looked back for him.

The subdued strains of music came through the open doors of the concert-room; and in the outer hall and corridors people moved up and down with a prowling motion slightly suggestive of beasts at the Zoo; every now and then one would slip back again into the playing-rooms. Inside there was a hushed, jingling sound, a subdued light, a faint scent of patchouli. People shifted continually from room to room and round the tables, singly, or in groups of two and three talking in low voices. A ring of faces circled each table, and watchful croupiers at the ends and sides shepherded them apathetically with incessant energy. Their rakes clacked against coins on the green cloths, and the drawl “rien n’va plus” went continually up to the vault of the painted ceiling.

The endless motion of fans gave an impression of great insects hovering between the players. The faces were for the most part grave, there was no laughter; and the walls of the rooms stared baldly at them in bright colours, covered with painted nymphs; on couches, here and there, people sat, idly talking, or gazing wearily in front of them. Now and then a hum would swell up from one of the tables, and die down again into monotony.

Mrs. Travis, who always played roulette because it afforded her the luxury of more vacillation for her money, selected a table, and waited till she could sit down next to a friendly and clean Austrian croupier, whom she had habituated by a long and careful interchange of badly pronounced “Bonjours” to supervise the placing of her stakes. She proceeded to put purse, fan, and handkerchief beside her, and to take from her pocket pencil and cards whereon to mark the numbers. Her lips moved incessantly, her eyes glanced restlessly from the table to her cards and back again, and occasionally she gave quick looks at the players round—she seemed to see everything. She marked her cards carefully, consulted them much—fingered her stakes before placing them, often drawing them back again at the last moment. When she won, she smiled—when she lost, she frowned; she was beautifully unconscious that she did any of these things. As she played, the lines deepened in her face, the colour faded—in short, she returned to first principles—a gambler pure and simple.

Jocelyn’s proceedings were in curious contrast. She took the first empty seat. Her eyelids dropped, her chin tilted up, her face assumed a mask of indifference. She pushed her stakes on with the rake, carelessly, as if they did not belong to her, she raked them in carelessly in the same way. She backed her luck and cut her losses with nonchalance in an orthodox fashion—gambling because other people gambled.

Giles, standing at the same table, staked feverishly on every spin of the wheel. He kept his eyes all the time on Jocelyn. He won a good deal, put it in his pocket, and made a motion towards her, but, receiving no sign of invitation, went back to his place, and played with his eyes still upon her, till he had lost all he had with him. Then he turned away with an air of relief, and, going round, stood behind her chair, where now and again his coat sleeve would brush against her shoulder. He had played for a distraction without finding it.

Nielsen sat at a given table, watching the game; he looked sad, expressionless. He played from the marked cards in his hands and the figures in his head; he awaited combinations. He staked rarely, content with a five per cent. profit upon his outlay of the afternoon. Presently some one appropriated his stake—he looked at the man, mildly hurt, but said nothing; shortly afterwards some one appropriated his neighbour’s stake—he at once exploded in defence; with words he cudgelled the appropriator, he cudgelled the croupiers, he brought the table about his ears, his face grew white, his eyes red, he held on to his point and gained it, then became once more sad and expressionless. For the rest he gambled undeviatingly—a mere matter of business.

Presently they came away, leaving Nielsen waiting patiently for a certain combination. As Jocelyn passed his chair he leant back, and twisted his rather short neck round to say, in a pathetic whisper, and with a shrug of his shoulders—

“Ça ne va pas, ce soir, I wait and wait, but the brread and butter does not come, and now you are going away, that is drreadful, don’t you know.” He had to twist back again in a hurry to mark his card with the last number.

Jocelyn, looking back, thought that he resembled a well-groomed seal watching a hole for fish.