A little cry which Paul could not prevent breaking from his lips drew the eyes of all upon him. Mademoiselle herself glanced up and saw his gaze upon her.
She started and instantly Paul turned away and endeavoured to hide himself amid the odd jumble of men who stood round the table watching the play.
"What was she doing here?" Paul thought. A thousand bewildering conjectures flashed into his brain, only to prove inadequate.
Try as he might he could not reconcile the so obvious fact that she was a lady with the peculiar incidents which trod hard upon each other's heels. He recalled the meeting with the strange Frenchman, which still remained a most baffling mystery.
Unconsciously, Paul took note of the men who hemmed the table in. Every type of face presented itself—the fleshy cheeks of middle-aged Jews, of pale clerks and salesmen, prosperous-looking men who might have been commercial travellers, and here and there a more refined-looking man in evening-dress.
A few were still playing, but the majority were watching the fortunes of the veiled lady. She was, besides, the only woman in the room.
Paul stood for a few moments and watched her play. Nor was it difficult, even to his unpracticed eye, to see that she had begun to wage a losing fight against the bank.
Draped in a long opera cloak from which her bare arms were thrust, she sat forward eagerly in her chair, her lips trembling, her eyes bright as stars.
Her face and figure were in extraordinary contrast to her surroundings.
Every man in the room, Paul thought, appeared to feel that he was in the presence of one who not only had the right, but the power, to command respect, and the coarse faces by which she was surrounded surveyed her with a certain deference.