2.
He had dinner at Quinto’s Restaurant. He knew that Margot would be waiting for him at home, but his meeting with Mrs. Belmire had made him a little arrogant. He resolved to give the girl a lesson.
“Let her worry,” he said to himself; “it will do her good.”
After dinner he had intended to take a walk, but the Casino drew him like a magnet. Good old Casino! So friendly, so inviting, so generous. Down the long, pansy-patterned sward of the garden, between the proud palms he could see its portico, goldenly aglow. The big yellow hotel-bus from Cap D’Ail dashed up to the door, small figures in evening dress got out and mounted the seven carpeted steps. He was conscious suddenly that he, too, wanted to play. Yes, more than anything in the world he wanted to gamble.
More brilliant than ever seemed the “Hall of Light.” Nearly all the men were in evening dress. Perhaps it was the influence of Mrs. Belmire, but for the first time Hugh felt out of place in his serge suit.
“I must get a dinner jacket,” he thought, “and all that goes with it.” Then came a second thought: “Why not make the bank buy me one? If I can win a thousand francs! By Gad! I’ll try it.”
He had his capital, two thousand francs, in his pocket. He felt strangely elated. Perhaps it was the flush of his recent success, perhaps the flask of Chianti he had taken with his dinner. He changed a note of five hundred francs into the red counters that represent louis, and began to play a game between two tables. He bet that one table would not repeat the colour that had just come up on the other. When he lost he made a progression. It was lively and exciting, and after playing an hour he found his twenty-five louis had increased by ten.
Two hundred francs for his dress suit in sixty minutes,—that wasn’t bad. Now with his winnings he could afford to be a little reckless; so as the impair at one table had come up seven times running, he played pair with a hundred francs,—and lost. Cheerfully he put another hundred on pair for the next spin: he lost. Too bad! All his winnings gone. He felt nettled. He would get them back quickly enough. He would go on backing pair for the break in the run. He put on a hundred: impair. He doubled: again impair. He martingaled to four hundred: alas! still impair.
His feeling of resentment had now given way to one of alarm. He had lost seven hundred. Then just as the ball was thrown, moved by a sudden desperate impulse, he tossed the rest of his capital, thirteen hundred francs, on the table. There ... if he won, he would gain six hundred francs; if he lost, he would have—the emotion. He felt his heart beating thickly. He saw a woman close by turn and look at him curiously. He contrived a careless smile. Then, inexorable as fate, he heard the colourless voice of the croupier: Thirteen. Impair again; he had lost.
He stood looking stupidly at his little pile of money, his no longer. As if to torment him the croupier raked it in with what seemed an unnecessary show of indifference. It had happened all so quickly. He was stunned, sick. He looked round, but there was no Mr. Gimp to save him this time. He felt at that moment he would have traded his soul for money to go on. A run of fourteen on impair,—it was incredible.