annaford and
Schuyler counted while the others watched, Carleton with amused
interest, Mary with comparative indifference, because the actual money
meant less to her than the thrill of winning it, and Madame d'Ambre on
the verge of tears. She considered that she was being robbed of her
rights, for she knew that this merciless man with the hard jaw and
pleasant blue eyes intended to keep her hands off the money.

"One hundred and nine thousand francs!" Schuyler announced at last. "I
congratulate you, Mademoiselle. And I wish you'd let me advise you."

"If I did, what would you say?" Mary smiled.

"I should say: 'Go home to-morrow.'"

"But I've just come away from home. I don't want to go back."

"Well, then, go to some other place, a place without a Casino."

"I suppose that's good advice," said Mary. "But--I can't take it yet."

"I'm sorry," returned Peter's cousin.

The whole conversation had been in French from the first, as Madame
d'Ambre knew little English; and Mary's accent was so perfect that to an
American or English ear it passed as Parisian. Neither Hannaford,
Schuyler, nor Carleton supposed that she had just arrived from England,
though her name--if they had caught it correctly--was English or Scotch.
"Mademoiselle" they called her, and wondering who and what she was,
vaguely associated her with France, probably Paris.

"How long shall you stay?" asked Carleton, in the pause that followed.

"I don't know," Mary said. "A few days, perhaps."

"Will you come down to the Condamine and see my hydro-aeroplane
to-morrow? I'm keeping her there, and practising a bit in the harbour,
before taking her to Nice."

"Oh, I should love to! I've never seen any sort of aeroplane, not even a
picture of one."

"That's clever and original of you, anyhow. Where have you been, to
avoid them? What time to-morrow? Is ten o'clock too early?"

Mary blushed. "Would afternoon suit you? I feel as if I should have luck
again, if I played in the morning."

"Afternoon, of course," Carleton assented politely, though he was
disappointed; for in giving the invitation he had been following his
friend's lead in trying to save the moth from the candle. "Shall we say
three o'clock? I'll call for you."

"We'll both call, with my car," said Schuyler. "But what about that 5
per cent. which I suppose you want to give your roulette teacher?" he
went on, with apparent carelessness.

"I want to give her more," Mary confessed, with that