the table. As the disc turned,
however, she pounced. She threw a louis into the wheel. But the
croupier, without changing countenance, took out the coin, pushed it
back to her, and began spinning again. In went another louis and again
the croupier stopped the wheel. Voices rose in complaint: Russian
voices, German voices, English voices. "Is this going on all night?"

"Pay Madame," said one of the inspectors.

Quietly and with incredible quickness nine times thirty-five louis were
counted out, payment for a maximum on a number. As the croupier pushed
the notes and gold across the table, a beautiful white hand, blazing
with rings, thrust it proudly back again. "That is all I wanted," the
actress said, with the air of Lady Macbeth. "The acknowledgment that I
was right. Keep the money."

The croupier shrugged his shoulders, and spun the wheel, with a bored
air.

"Faites vos jeux, Messieurs."

"Shall I put something for you on twenty-four?" hastily asked Madame
d'Ambre.

"But it has just come."

"It may come again. Often a number repeats. Shall I or not? An instant,
and it will be too late."

With her heart in her throat, Mary handed the Frenchwoman a
hundred-franc note crushed in a ball. Madame d'Ambre asked a croupier
near where she stood to stake the money. He did so, just in time. The
ball slipped into the pocket of number 21. "Too bad! But better luck
next time. Will you try a simple chance, red or black, for instance? Or
one of the dozens?"

"No, twenty-four again," answered a voice that Mary hardly knew as her
own. "I must!" With a trembling hand, she gave her friend nine louis.
"That's the maximum for a number, you said," she faltered. "Please put
it on."

"But all your money will soon be gone at this rate. A louis would bring
you thirty-five----"

"No, no, the maximum!"

Madame d'Ambre, aided by her croupier-neighbour, obeyed.

A strange golden haze floated before Mary's eyes. She could not see
through it. She tried to tell herself, as the big wheel spun, that this
was not important at all; that it did not really matter what happened:
yet something inside her said, "It's the most important thing in the
world, to win, to win, to make all these people envy you. It isn't the
money, it's the joy, the triumph, the ecstasy."

The ball dropped. Mary could not look, could not have seen if she had
looked: but her whole soul listened for the croupier's announcement.

"Vingt-quatre, noir, pair et passe."