Bob Hines was gambling, as usual, but Brentin, Teddy, and I went down to the Condamine to meet them. Teddy and Brentin had had their row out in the morning, to which I had listened in silence—with the indulgent air of a man who doesn’t want to add to the unpleasantness—and now were pretty good friends again. It was clearly understood, however, that no new acquaintances were to be made, male or female, and that henceforth any one of us seen talking to a stranger was immediately to be sent home.
I fear the party from the Amaranth did not have a very good impression of Monte Carlo to begin with, for they landed in the Condamine, just where the town drain-pipes lie, and came ashore, each of them, with a handkerchief to the nose.
“So this is the Riviera!” snuffled my good sister. “I understood it was embosomed in flowers.”
They all looked very brown and well, and seemed in high spirits.
As for the yacht, she had behaved splendidly all through, and the conduct and polite attentions of Captain Evans and the crew had been above all praise. The only difficulty had been to explain away the shell and the three cannon; for which Forsyth had found the ingenious excuse that they were wanted for the Riff pirates, in case we determined to voyage along the African coast, where they are said to abound and will sometimes attack a yacht.
We all strolled up the hill together, and, such were their spirits, nothing would content the new arrivals but an immediate visit to the rooms. Miss Rybot, especially, was as cheerful as a blackbird in April; she had come there to gamble, she said, and gamble she would at once. She and Masters were evidently on the best of terms, and even the captious Brentin was pleased with what people who write books call her “infectious gayety.”
“You have your own little schemes,” she cried, “and I have mine. I am going to win fifty pounds to pay my debts with, and then I am going home, whether you have finished or not. And if I haven’t finished, you will all have to leave me here.”
They were soon provided with their pink admission-cards (ours had that morning, after the usual pretended scrutiny and demur, been exchanged for white monthly ones), and, after leaving their cloaks, passed through the swing-doors into the rooms.
It was just that impressive hour—the only one, I think, at Monte Carlo—when the Casino footmen, in their ill-fitting liveries, zigzagged with faded braid, bring in the yellow oil-lamps with hanging green shades, and sling them from the long brass chains over the tables. The rest of the rooms lie in twilight, before the electric light is turned up. Dim figures sweep noiselessly as spectres over the dull-shining parquet floor, and, like a spear, I have seen the last long ray of southern sunshine strike in and touch the ghastly hollow cheek of some old woman fingering her coins, lifeless and mechanical as Charon fingering his passage-money for the dead; but, just over the tables, the yellow light from the lamp falls brilliant, yet softly, brightly illuminating the gamblers’ hands and some few of their faces, throwing the white numbers on the rich green cloth as strongly into relief as though newly sewn on there of tape.
“Faites votre jeu, messieurs!” croaks the croupier, in his dry, toneless voice.