“Yes, I remember. I understand perfectly why she is kind to Paul,” Katy replied, and I could hear her foot tap impatiently under the table, as she grew more and more like Fan. “If Carl comes to that villa with Paul, I’ll never speak to him again,” she added.
She was greatly excited and her excitement continued until dinner was over and we were on our way to the Casino. The party from the Grand Villa were just ahead of us,—Madame, with her black train thrown over her arm, showing clouds of white lace and muslin underwear, while the man who, Katy said, was Count de Varré, walked beside her, occasionally putting his hand on her shoulder when she limped more than usual. We purposely held back that they might enter before us; “and get well under way before Madame spies me,” Katy said, a trifle viciously for her. “The last time I was here I went in when she did, and you should have seen the great black eyes she leveled at me for an instant, and then with a half shrug walked away. She didn’t play that night while I was there. I believe she thinks I am her evil genius.”
We were in the Casino by this time and I wanted to look about me a little, but Katy hurried us on to the play-rooms, ablaze with light and splendor and people gathered from all parts of the globe,—French, Germans, Russians, Italians, English and Americans,—young and old, beauties and belles, wrinkled hags and fair, innocent looking girls, who had staked their first five francs stealthily, as if ashamed to do it,—their second, if they won, with more assurance,—their third, with still more, until at last every afternoon and evening, Sunday not excepted, found them there, sitting between and jostled by men to whom at home they would consider it a degradation to speak, or be near. At one table sat an old, shrivelled woman, playing heavily, but so blind and deaf and demented that she did not always know whether she had lost or won, until her maid, who stood behind her, told her, and raked the gold into her bag. At another table was a young man; an American, just married, and also playing heavily, but losing as heavily, while his girl-wife beside him looked on with tearful eyes and an occasional remonstrance as she saw what was perhaps their all melting away so fast. It was wonderful, and bewildering, and intoxicating, and as I went from table to table and heard above the hum of voices the constant sing-song of the croupiers “Faite le jeu; le jeu est fait,” and looked at the players and saw how rapidly the gold and silver changed hands, I could understand how strong was the temptation to try one’s luck when only five francs was the stake and there was no possible chance for cheating or being cheated.
“Would you like to risk a dollar?” Jack said, to try the strength of my principles.
“No, indeed,” I replied, just as Katy pulled my sleeve and whispered, “There they are,—the party from the Grand Villa,—all at the same table. Madame has her back to us. You and Jack go round where you can see her without letting her know you are watching her. By and by I’ll come and hypnotize her so she’ll quit playing. You’ll see!”
We left Katy and went round to the other side of the table, getting as near to it as possible and, without seeming to watch Madame, scanned her curiously. She was handsome, with that voluptuous kind of beauty so many men admire. She was quite tall and stout, but her figure was so perfect that one forgot her size entirely. I knew that she owed much of her brilliant color to art, but it was art perfected, as was the shading under her eyes which two or three times swept the crowd in front of her as if in quest of someone. I might have been mistaken, but I thought there was a look of relief in them as if the one they feared to see was not there. Once she smiled and spoke to the man beside her, Count de Varré, showing a dimple in one cheek and a set of very white even teeth. Her chief attraction, however, was in her golden hair which contrasted so strongly with her eyes and eyebrows. It was certainly a strange freak of nature,—that hair and those eyes,—and I said so to Jack, and asked him what he thought of her.
“She is striking, certainly,” he said, “and just the kind of woman to please some men,—Carl, for example; but she is not my style, and by George, I believe I’ve seen her before.”
“That is hardly possible,” I replied, “inasmuch as she is a born French woman.”
“How do you know she is a born French woman,” he asked, and I rejoined, “I don’t know for sure, but have taken it for granted. When Paul first met her she could not speak English. Don’t you remember he wrote that he was teaching her?”
“English or no English, I have seen that woman before, or some one like her,” Jack said.