“Really, dad,” cried Liane, pouting prettily, “it is too bad of you to break your promise. I only came with you on one condition, namely, that you wouldn’t play.”
“Well, I’ve won ten louis, so no great harm has been done,” he answered.
“But there is harm,” she protested firmly. “When once you come to the tables you cannot, you know, leave until you’ve won, or lost everything. I thought you had, for my sake, given it up.”
They had drawn aside from the table, and were standing in the middle of the handsome room.
“This is only in fun, Liane,” Zertho assured her. “We are neither of us any longer professionals. Our day is over.”
“It is certainly not kind of you to invite my father to play like this,” she exclaimed, turning upon him resentfully. “I have already told you that I do not wish him to play.”
“I have not invited him,” Zertho declared with a laugh. “If he chooses to follow the run I cannot well prevent it.”
At that moment Brooker, who still kept his keen eyes riveted upon the table, heard the croupier’s voice, hesitated a moment, and taking two rapid steps forward tossed upon the red diamond the four notes he had just picked up.
Whirr-r! click! went the ball again, and the croupier’s announcement a few seconds later told him that he had won four hundred francs.
Liane, annoyed, flushed slightly, compressed her lips and turning from them with a gesture of anger walked straight out from the great gilded salons so hateful to her. As she passed, many turned and remarked how beautiful she was. She knew that the mania which had caused her father’s downfall had returned, that this double success would cause him to plunge still more deeply. Zertho smiled contemptuously at her fears, and neither men went after her to induce her to return.