Although she had made up her mind to gamble she was more than prudent. For the first week she did nothing but watch the tables with concentrated attention; then she bought a note-book with shiny covers and began to take down numbers. She would stand by a table for two or three hours, until her column of figures was quite a long one. Then, finding a quiet seat in the Café de Paris, she would sip a cup of chocolate and study them. She felt encouraged by the fact that a number of women, with negligible capital, were undoubtedly making a living at the Casino. Shabby, anxious creatures she saw them hovering like hawks over the tables, waiting to get in on “a safe thing,” and going away finally with a few pieces of gain. They had lived thus for years.
“Surely,” she thought, “with two thousand francs of capital, I can win a louis a day.”
The next step was to make up her mind how she would play. She must adopt a method, and concentrate on it. After long reflection she decided that the most cautious way of playing was to stake on two of the three dozens. In this way she would only have one dozen against her. From the examination of her figures, and the columns of permanencies published in a paper whose colour was the green of hope, she found that the first dozen seemed to come a little less frequently than the other two, and that it had a greater tendency to repeat. Here was a hint for her. She would wait until the first dozen had asserted itself strongly, then, as it were, retired exhausted. She would put five francs on the second and five francs on the third dozen. She would be covering thus twenty-four of the thirty-six numbers. If either of her two dozens won, she would receive fifteen francs, a gain of five francs. As soon as she had won four times, and had made a louis, she would stop. She furthermore decided that she would always play a flat stake, and would never make a progression. In the long run a progression was always fatal. If she lost a louis on any one day, she would stop for that day and not court disaster by trying to retrieve her losses.
As she pressed through the crowd and put her first stake on the table, she felt her heart beat wildly. She thought every one was watching her.
“Here is a new one,” she imagined them saying. “Another poor little chicken come to be plucked. Look how her hand trembles as she puts her two white counters on the table. One would imagine she was playing for thousands.”
But after all every one was absorbed in the game, and no one paid any attention to her. The ball spun around. She had won.
“Ah!” she thought, “it is always specially arranged that the beginner wins.”
And she played again with more confidence. The player has the advantage over the bank in that he may select his moment of play. (Unfortunately he generally selects the wrong moment.) Margot waited for what seemed to her a favourable moment and staked again. Again she won. Her second and third coups were equally successful. She was strangely elated, far more so than the extent of her gain really warranted. She had been excited and anxious before, now a happy reaction set in. She changed the white counters she had gained for a twenty franc bill, which she regarded with a rare pleasure. How strange to make money so easily! Playing as prudently as this it did not seem possible to lose. Just think! if she had only played with louis-stakes instead of five franc ones.... Or even with hundred franc placques.... A sudden vision of fortune dazzled her. “If....” Ah! that pregnant “if” that gamblers use in victory and defeat. The tragedy of that “if.” The virus was already in her veins, and she went home to dream of whirring roulette wheels and the smiles of fortune.
She awaited the second day with a passion of eagerness. But alas! things did not go so well. When she had made three wins she had a loss. With chagrin she watched her two pieces swept away. She was now only one ahead. She won her next three coups, however, and retired with her louis of gain.
The third day she had a hard fight. It was as if the Casino had said: “Tut! Tut! we must not let this slip of a girl get our money so easily. We must begin to baulk her a bit.”