Margot was glad of every opportunity to make a little money by selling her place. It meant the price of a square meal: spaghetti, and salad and cheese, in a cheap Italian restaurant in Beausoleil. Otherwise, when an increasing dizziness warned her that she had not yet broken her fast, she had to seek a quiet corner of the gardens, and lunch on a bit of chocolate and some bread. Then she would hurry back to the Casino, fearful that in her absence a chance had come up to make a few francs.
It was a weary, anxious existence. Sometimes indeed she got down to her last five francs before a sudden turn of luck exalted her again to the heights of hope. The effect on her nerves was terrible. Her nights became haunted. Roulette wheels whirled before her closed eyes and she often dreamed of a mighty one that turned into a great whirlpool, in which she and all the other players were spinning around helplessly. And always, just as she was being sucked down into the vortex, she awoke.
2.
One evening as she sat in a corner of the gardens, silent and absorbed, a man approached her. He was dark and weedy, and his eyebrows twitched up and down continually. She recognized him as one of her fellow-lodgers at the pension, and she had heard him addressed as Monsieur Martel. After looking sharply at her, he took a seat by her side.
“Had any luck lately?” he asked with that freemasonry of gamblers that permits of a promiscuous conversation.
Silently she shook her head.
He lighted a cigarette. “It’s a cruel game,” he observed. “God help the poor pikers who haven’t enough capital to defend themselves. I had a hard fight to-day. I was obliged to play a martingale up to five thousand francs, all to win a wretched louis. But I got out all right. I imagine you have not been very successful yourself lately. I have seen you losing.”
She nodded. He drew comfortably nearer.
“Well, that’s too bad. By the way, if I can be of any help to you, give you any advice.... I have a considerable knowledge of the game....”
She laughed bitterly. “I, too, Monsieur, have a considerable knowledge of the game. But there ... that is all the capital I have in the world, ten francs.”