Larssen was keenly interested in the throng of smart men and women clustered around the tables. Here was the raw material of his craft—human nature. Moths around a candle—well, he himself had lit many candles. The process of singeing their wings intrigued him vastly.
Olive explained the game to him with a flush of excitement on her cheeks. He noted that flush and made a mental note to use it for his own ends. She took a seat at a roulette table and asked him to advise her where to stake her money. Sir Francis preferred trente-et-quarante, and went off to another table.
"I can see you've been born lucky," she whispered to Larssen.
"I'll try to share it with you," he answered, and suggested some numbers with firm, decisive confidence. Though he had keen pride in his intellect and his will, he had also firm reliance on his intuitive sense. With Lars Larssen, all three worked hand in hand.
Olive began to win. Her eyes sparkled, and she exchanged little gay pleasantries and compliments with the shipowner.
"We've made all the loose hay out of this sunshine," said Larssen after an hour or so, when a spell of losing set in. "Now we'll move to another table."
Olive obeyed him with alacrity. She liked his masterful orders. Here was a man to whom one could give confidence.
"Five louis on carré 16-20," he advised suddenly when they had found place at another table.
Without hesitation she placed a gold hundred-franc piece on the intersecting point of the four squares 16, 17, 19, 20. The croupier flicked the white marble between thumb and second finger, and it whizzed round the roulette board like an echo round the whispering gallery of St Paul's. At length it slowed down, hit against a metal deflector, and dropped sharply into one of the thirty-seven compartments of the roulette board. A croupier silently touched the square of 16 with his rake to indicate that this number had won, and the other croupier proceeded to gather in the stakes.
Forty louis in notes were pushed over to Olive.