of numbers when they keep coming up. It may come a third
time running. I've seen it happen. Five repetitions is the record. What
do you say?"

"I meant to play twenty-four again, anyway," Mary answered, with the
peculiar soft obstinacy which had opened the gates of Saint
Ursula-of-the-Lake and brought her to Monte Carlo.

"You are plucky!"

"This time, surely, I've money enough for maximums on everything," Mary
said to the Frenchwoman behind her, who was now becoming superstitious
concerning the luck of her _petite dinde_.

Without protest, Madame d'Ambre selected from the piles of gold and
notes now ranged in front of Mary the stakes indicated, and, with a hand
not quite steady, placed those within her reach. The neighbouring
croupier, faintly smiling, obligingly did the rest, noting without
surprise that many players were sportingly, yet timidly, risking fat
five-franc pieces on the amateur's number. It was the sort of thing they
generally did, the _imbeciles_, when a player was having a sensational
run of luck. But certainly there was something magnetic and fatal about
this pretty young woman, who was new to the game and the place,
something curiously inspiring. Not only he as well as the gamblers felt
it, but the croupier at the wheel. The spinner felt in his bones that
whether he wished it or not he was certain to spin a third twenty-four.

A round of applause went up from perhaps fifty pairs of hands when the
ball was seen to lie once more in the pocket numbered 24. Mary,
realizing that the applause was meant for her, felt like a spirit
released from its body. She was a goddess on a pinnacle. This was life:
the wine of life. It was not the money she thought of. All the gold and
paper which had suddenly become hers was nothing in itself, but what it
represented was victory extending over the forces of nature. This
mysterious game, whose next turn none could foretell, seemed to be
yielding its secret to her. She had the conviction that Something was
telling her what to do, what would happen with the spin of the wheel.
It would be madness and a kind of vile ingratitude to stop now, while
the Something was there.

Hearing the applause, which meant a coup of uncommon interest, people
came hurrying from every direction, some even running, with a peculiar
step which kept them from slipping on the polished floor. Many had
learned this from long practice in running in with the early gamblers at
the morning opening o