d put
into _mille_ notes, or you cannot carry it."

For an instant Mary had forgotten the money and the necessity of taking
it away, but Madame d'Ambre, who had now firmly identified her own
interests with those of her protegee, attended to the practical duties
of the partnership. She was somewhat disagreeably conscious that the
young man's eyes were fixed upon her as she collected her friend's
enormous winnings. As people made way for the Frenchwoman and her
starlike companion to pass, this man gathered up his small store of gold
and silver, and followed. On the outskirts of the crowd stood the
Dauntreys and their party. Mary and Madame d'Ambre passed close to them,
but the heroine of the moment was too intensely excited to recognize any
one. She walked as if on air, her hands full of notes, some of which she
was stuffing into her gold-beaded bag.

"Why, it's the girl in the train who said she was going to Florence,"
exclaimed Dodo Wardropp. "Can she be the one who's made the sensation?"

"Yes, it's she," said Lady Dauntrey. "See how they're looking at her,
and pointing her out. I wonder if it's true she's won thousands of
pounds?"

No one answered. Lord Dauntrey had slipped quietly away from the others,
and found a place at a table near enough to play over some one's head.
This was the first time he had found a chance to test his new system,
except on the toy roulette wheel. He began staking five-franc pieces,
and writing down notes in a small book. The bored look was burned out of
his weary eyes. They brightened, and a more healthful colour slowly
drove away his unnatural paleness.

The others, who had been playing in the new rooms, did not follow or
look for him. They stared at every one who seemed worth staring at. The
two Americans and Dodo expected Lady Dauntrey to know everybody. It was
for this, partly, that they were paying large sums to her, and they felt
a depressed need of getting their money's worth. So far the arrangements
for their comfort at the Villa Bella Vista were disappointing. Still,
two young men of title were there, and that was something, although one
of them was only an Austrian count, and the other no better than a
baronet. But Lord Dauntrey promised for to-morrow morning Dom Ferdinand
de Trevanna, the Pretender to an historic throne.

Dodo, according to Miss Collis, had "grabbed" the English baronet, and
left her only the Austrian count, who looked younger than any man could
really be