On the ground-floor on the right hand of the entrance hall was a large room used as a card room. Here stood a long table covered with a green cloth for the players of those games which require a Bank or a large company. They are Hazard, Lansquenet, Loo, Faro, and I know not how many more. But, whatever their names, they all mean the same thing and only one thing, viz., gambling. Along the wall on either side were small tables for parties of two or four, who came to play Quadrille, Whist, Piquet, Ecarté, and the like—games more dangerous to the young and the beginner than the more noisy gambling of the crowd. Candles stood on all the small tables and down the middle of the great table: there were also candles in sconces on the wall. As yet none of them were lit.
While I was looking round the empty room, Madame herself came in dressed in white satin, and carrying her domino in her hand.
'I look into every room,' she said, 'before the doors are open: but into this room I look two or three times every evening.'
'You come to look at the players?'
'I have a particular reason for coming here. I will tell you some time or other—perhaps to-night, Will. If so, it will be the greatest surprise of your life—the very greatest surprise. Yes—I watch the players. Their faces amuse me. When I see a man losing time after time, and remaining calm and unmoved, I say to myself, "There is a gentleman." Play is the finest test of good breeding. When a man curses his luck; curses his neighbour for bringing him bad luck; bangs the table with his fist; and calls upon all the Gods to smite him dead, I say to myself, "That is a city spark."'
'I fear I am a city spark.'
'When I see two sitting together at a table quiet and alone I ask myself which is the sharper and which is the flat. By watching them for a few minutes I can always find out—one of them always is the sharper, you see, and the other always the flat. And if you watch them for a few minutes you can always find out. Beware of this room, Will. Be neither sharper nor flat.'
She turned and went off to see some other room.
Looking out at the back I saw that the garden had been hung with coloured lamps, and looked gay and bright. It was a warm fine evening: there would be many who would choose the garden for a promenade. Other rooms there were: the Blue Room: the Star Room: the Red Room: the Chinese Room: I know not what, nor for what they were all used.
But the time approached. I climbed up the steep stairs and took my place in the music gallery, where already most of the orchestra were assembled: like them I tuned my violin, and then waited the arrival of the Company.