"Do you know any of them by sight?" I inquired, much interested.
"Oh, one or two," he answered, laughing. "Some of them are, of course, eccentric and quite harmless characters." Then a moment later he added: "Do you see that tall, thin old man just ascending the steps—the one with the soft white felt hat? Well, his is a curious story. Twenty years ago he came here as a millionaire, and within a month lost everything he possessed at trente et quarante. So huge were the profits made by the bank that, instead of giving him his viatique to London, they allotted him a pension of a louis a day for life, on the understanding that he should never again enter the Rooms. For nearly twenty years he lived in Nice, haunting the Promenade des Anglais, and brooding over his past foolishness. Last year, however, somebody died unexpectedly, and left him quite comfortably off, whereupon he paid back to Monte Carlo all that he had received and returned again to gamble. His luck, however, has proved just as bad as before. Yet each month, as soon as he draws his income, he comes over, and in a single day flings it all away upon the red, his favourite colour. His history is only one of many."
With interest I looked at the tall, thin-faced old gambler as he painfully ascended the steps; and even as I watched he passed in, eager to fling away all that stood between himself and starvation.
Truly, the world of Monte Carlo is a very queer place.
Ulrica and Gerald came laughing across the leafy Place and joined us at our table. It was very pleasant there, with the band playing the latest waltzes, the gay promenaders strolling beneath the palms, the bright flowers and the pigeons strutting in the roadway. Indeed, as one sat there it seemed hard to believe that this was actually the much-talked-of Monte Carlo—the plague-spot of Europe.
I don't think that I ever saw Ulrica look so well as on that afternoon in the white serge which she had had made in Paris; for white serge is, as you know, always de rigueur at Monte in winter, with white hat and white shoes. I was also in white, but it never suited me as it did her, yet one had to be smart, even at the expense of one's complexion. At Monte Carlo one must at least be respectable, even in one's vices.
"Come, let's go back to the Rooms," suggested Ulrica, when she had finished her tea, flavoured with orange-flower water in accordance with the mode at the Café de Paris.
"Miss Rosselli won't play any more," said Reggie.
"My dear Carmela!" cried Ulrica. "Why, surely, you've the pluck to follow your good fortune!"
But I was obdurate, and although I accompanied the others I did not risk a single sou.