“Red, odd, and below,” the croupier droned mechanically.
“Ah! you see; what did I tell you?” said the Plunger, with sudden calmness. “You have won more than your 20,000 francs; you are proprietors—I congratulate you!”
“Ah, my God!” cried the Frenchman, in a frenzy of delight, “I will double it.”
He reached toward the fresh piles of coin as if he meant to sweep them back again, but the Plunger put himself in his way and with a quick movement caught up the rolls of money and dropped them into the skirt of the woman, which she raised like an apron to receive her treasure.
“Now,” said young Harringford, determinedly, “you come with me.” The Frenchman tried to argue and resist, but the Plunger pushed him on with the silent stubbornness of a drunken man. He handed the woman into a carriage at the door, shoved her husband in beside her, and while the man drove to the address she gave him, he told the Frenchman, with an air of a chief of police, that he must leave Monte Carlo at once, that very night.
“Do you suppose I don't know?” he said. “Do you fancy I speak without knowledge? I've seen them come here rich and go away paupers. But you shall not; you shall keep what you have and spite them.” He sent the woman up to her room to pack while he expostulated with and browbeat the excited bridegroom in the carriage. When she returned with the bag packed, and so heavy with the gold that the servants could hardly lift it up beside the driver, he ordered the coachman to go down the hill to the station.
“The train for Paris leaves at midnight,” he said, “and you will be there by morning. Then you must close your bargain with this old Carbut, and never return here again.”
The Frenchman had turned during the ride from an angry, indignant prisoner to a joyful madman, and was now tearfully and effusively humble in his petitions for pardon and in his thanks. Their benefactor, as they were pleased to call him, hurried them into the waiting train and ran to purchase their tickets for them.
“Now,” he said, as the guard locked the door of the compartment, “you are alone, and no one can get in, and you cannot get out. Go back to your home, to your new home, and never come to this wretched place again. Promise me—you understand?—never again!”
They promised with effusive reiteration. They embraced each other like children, and the man, pulling off his hat, called upon the good Lord to thank the gentleman.