“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I know I shouldn’t.”
“Well, I don’t know how to thank you. You saved me. But there.... Bang goes my system.”
“Mighty good job, too. Your system was no use. You were playing against a phenomenon. Don’t you see the phenomenon was lying in wait for you, and sooner or later you were going to go up against it. Bah! this rotten place. Let’s go into the atrium and have a smoke. When I see these fools all crazy over that rotten wheel I am ashamed of the human race.”
Sitting on her usual seat near the door was the Emslie girl; she seemed very tired and started up every time any one came out.
“There!” said Mr. Gimp fiercely, “just look at that kid. Should be in her bed hours ago. Waiting for her fool of a mother who is playing like the devil in the salon privé. If you were to open that woman’s head you’d find a roulette wheel instead of a brain.”
As Hugh left the Casino the night air seemed delicious. The moon was now perfect in shape,—a moon worthy even of Monte Carlo, dappling the oily swell of the harbour with pools of playful quicksilver. He sat on a bench and watched it till his serenity returned.
When at last he entered their room, the lamp was turned very low and behind the grey curtain that divided them he heard the girl breathing gently.
2.
After breakfast next morning, Hugh sat figuring over his green book of permanencies. Finally he said: