CHAPTER XXI.
THE GREEN TABLE.
One afternoon a fortnight later Ralph Ansell, well dressed, and posing as usual as a wealthy American, who had lived for many years in France, stood at the window of his room in the expensive Palace Hotel at Trouville, gazing upon the sunny plage, with its boarded promenade placed on the wide stretch of yellow sand.
In the sunshine there were many bathers in remarkable costumes, enjoying a dip in the blue sea, while the crowd of promenaders in summer clothes passed up and down. The season was at its height, for it was the race week at Deauville, and all the pleasure world of Paris had flocked there.
Surely in the whole of gay Europe there is no brighter watering place than Trouville-sur-Mer during the race week, and certainly the played-out old Riviera, with the eternal Monte, is never so chic, nor are the extravagant modes ever so much in evidence, as at the Normandie at Deauville, or upon the boarded promenade which runs before those big, white hotels on the sands at Trouville.
Prices were, of course, prohibitive. The casino was at its gayest and brightest, and the well-known American bar, close to the last-named institution, Ansell patronised daily in order to scrape acquaintance with its chance customers.
Having been up playing cards the greater part of the night before, he had eaten his luncheon in bed, and had just risen and dressed.
He gazed out of his window down upon the sunny scene of seaside revelry, as a bitter smile played upon his lips.
“What infernal luck I had last night,” he muttered, between his teeth. Then glancing at the dressing-table, his eyes fell upon the hotel bill, which had come up on the tray with his déjeuner. “Fourteen hundred and eighteen francs,” he muttered, “and only those three louis to pay it with.”