“I’m awfully sorry. I have an engagement at the club. Probably see you to-morrow.”
She left him feeling rather chilled and sober.
“Well,” he consoled himself, “perhaps it is just as well. In any case I now have twenty-five thousand francs.”
He did not play for the next few days. His success rather dismayed him; his nerve was gone. Then on two successive days a chance appeared which was too favourable to be resisted; it was what he called a sure-shot. As a matter of fact, it really came off in five cases out of six, but only by watching and waiting could one get on to it. A long run on one of the simple chances had to be followed by a certain combination of both chances. In each case when he played it he won; his capital had now increased to thirty-five thousand francs.
He began to feel what he had never felt in his life before,—secure. To a rich man that sum was nothing; to him, everything. But he was becoming increasingly nervous. He must not lose this money. He must be more prudent than ever. If he lost it, it would discourage him utterly; he would never have the heart to begin over again. Yet he must make the sixty thousand on which he had set his heart. Only twenty-five thousand more. Four wins of maximums would practically do it. Well, he must pluck up his courage and try again. He must nerve himself for the final struggle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE BIG FIGHT
DURING his long spells of waiting, he became more and more intimately acquainted with the world of the Casino,—from the prowling seeker of the sure-shot to the holiday plunger, from the philosophic veteran with pencil and note-book to the nouveau riche spraying the table with louis. He came to know the eternal types, the avid-eyed old women, the blowsy, brazen matron, the cocotte throwing money away with cynical contempt, the young girl from the convent risking her first five franc piece.
Then the unending Casino comedies. For instance, the Honeymoon Couple comedy. The first day she hangs on his arm while he plays. The second day he hangs on her arm while she plays. The third day they separate a little and try tiny flutters of their own. The fourth day they get seats at the same table and advise each other as to their play. The fifth day they get seats at separate tables, and each plays as if the other did not exist. The sixth day she is begging him for money, and he is refusing. The seventh day they moon round without playing, he moody, she sulky, very near to a quarrel. Then on the eighth day they disappear, perhaps never to be the same again.
Then there is the woman who talks to the croupier, fawning on him and asking him how she ought to play. Sometimes the knight of the rateau hazards a guess. If it comes off, tant mieux. Perhaps, it means a tip; if it doesn’t, tant pis. No man is infallible.
These types repeat themselves endlessly; but among them from time to time appear strange original characters piquing the curiosity of the public. The Casino is like a stage where they enter, play their parts, and make their exit. Old and young, good and bad, rich and poor,—they come and go; they lose or win; they sidle across the glossy floor under the great white dome; they smirk and posture, wrangle and vapour. Beefy Englishman and desiccated Yank, flatulent Frenchman and oily Italian, morose Spaniard and bovine Swede; Jap, Chinaman, Rasta and Levantine Jew—they mix amid the throng that surges around the whirring wheels, and their strange tongues mingle in one confused babble.