A triple row of people formed around the table, jamming together to get a better view over adjoining shoulders.
Spadoni smiled, but finally the ironic curiosity fixed on his person began to make him nervous. Many of those who were gazing on him were important personages and had always inspired him with deep respect. Fortunately, he felt the Duchess at his back, seated there with an air of ownership, and watching him with a look of authority. If he made any mistake, the great lady was capable of striking him.... Courage and forward march! The croupier, sitting opposite to collect and pay the bets, was shuffling the cards, before putting them in a small double box, from which the banker was to draw them. Poor banker! The crowd, considering his elevation something quite extraordinary, was ready to laugh no matter what happened. As he sat down in the presidential chair, the onlookers considered the pianist's embarrassment very amusing, and an unrestrained laughter greeted his appearance in the seat of authority. He asked the croupier a question in a low voice, and the same explosion of merriment was repeated. The women were the most demonstrative as they thought their ridicule might pass over Spadoni's head, and reach the woman who had placed him there. The musician's look of surprise at this unexplainable hilarity only served to prolong it to the point of a general uproar. They all laughed contagiously on seeing his comical inability to understand the situation. But a rough voice put an end to the merriment.
"Bank!"
It was the Greek. He had seated himself on Spadoni's right, with the angry look of a person who is conscious of an enormous injustice and feels it is necessary to remedy it. He could not tolerate the fact that this grotesque person should occupy the same place in which he had been admired every evening. Neither did he consider it admissible that a woman should mix in affairs that belong entirely to men. He had the same scandalized and astonished feeling of a person witnessing some disarrangement in the rhythmic order of Nature. The world was upside down: apprentices were trying to be masters; class distinctions were not being respected, such nonsense must be stopped once for all. "Cards!"
The Prince trembled. Alicia's fifteen thousand francs were in danger. That man was going to prevent the bank from continuing. If the Greek were to win, the entire capital bet by Alicia would vanish; if he lost, her money would be doubled. But he was sure to win. When a man as lucky as he dared do that!...
Spadoni was overwhelmed on hearing the great man's voice. Instinctively he turned his eyes in the direction of the Duchess, but withdrew them at once, still more overwhelmed by her motionless features and the hard look that seemed to strike his shoulder, as though he were to blame.
The double box, quite ready, was awaiting his reach. He dealt cards to the right and left, and then drew his own.
The Greek showed his cards, throwing them down on the board. "Eight." A murmur of approval arose around the table. The admirers of his good luck rejoiced as though it were a triumph of their own. From the opposite side he took cards which the croupier offered him, and showed them after a previous rapid examination of them. The murmur was now one of amazement. Eight again! He was going to win. It was almost impossible for the banker to make a higher point than that.
Spadoni, pale, his brow glazed with sweat, turned his cards over. The public greeted them with a suppressed exclamation: "Nine!"
The very ones who had laughed at him, considered this result quite natural. "Luck always protects the simple-minded."