“‘Let me be,’ she said. ‘My good angel is helping me,’ and I guess he was, or something else, she had such luck, and won more than she had ever done before. Then she began to lose, and, when I asked where the good angel was now, she answered, ‘Gone to heaven, and the devil has taken his place; but I’ll outwit him yet.’
“I believe the devil was there, for she lost every franc she had gained, and I led her from the room a ruined woman. She was sick three days; then she rallied, and, in spite of all I could say, she went back to the Casino.
“She had grown so old in the few days; her face was like a corpse, and she was bent over and sat huddled up, wrapped in furs like a mummy, and said she was going to break the bank or die. It was awful to see her, so white and trembly, her head shaking and her hands like claws as she put down her money, small sums at first; then, as she won, more and more and more, winning all the time, till people stopped to look at the old Russian woman breaking the bank.
“I don’t know but she would have done it if she hadn’t got dizzy with the awful big lot she made at her last venture. The croupier looked surprised, as if he wondered how long he could hold out. But madame’s time had come. She’d made her last play, and fell back against me, with a cry, ‘Zaidee! Zaidee! I can’t breathe!’
“We got her into the open air, and up to the hotel and in bed, with hot-water bags around her, for she was cold and stiff as a stone, and clinched tight in her hand was some gold she was going to put on the table when the spell took her. I pried it out, and she snarled at me like a dog, and talked all night of breaking the bank. She was much better the next day, and made me figure up how much she had made, and she looked so queer, sitting up in bed, shaking all over, with her teeth out and her nightcap on, chuckling when I told her the amount.
“‘You have been a good girl,’ she said to me. ‘You’ve helped me win many times, when I would have put my pile somewhere else. I’m going to make you a present, and then make my will.’
“She gave me—how much do you guess?”
“A hundred rubles?” I ventured, in reply.
“A hundred!” Zaidee exclaimed. “A thousand! And she counted it all out and handed it to me. Then she said, ‘That is your dot when you marry.’ Then she asked for pen and paper, and made her will. Everything here belongs to her son. She’d nothing to will but the money she had won at Monte Carlo, and this, after a few rubles to each of the servants, she gave to monsieur, on condition that he did not marry that woman. ‘He will know what woman,’ she said. ‘I’ve kept him from her a good while,’ If he married her, the money was to go to some charities.”
As Zaidee said “that woman,” she gave me a knowing look, and I felt a chill run down my back, for I was sure I knew who was meant by “that woman!” and that she had thrust out her hand to strike me from her grave. She need not have worried, I thought. He does not want that woman, and she does not want him.