the table, and ears open for every remark, of the
players and the croupier, he took his first lesson in roulette. He saw
a mere youth win fifteen thousand francs, which were stolen in the most
barefaced mariner by a rouged girl scarcely older than the youth; he saw
two old gamesters stake their coins, and lose, and walk quietly out of
the place; he saw the bank win fifty thousand francs at a single turn.

'This is rather good fun,' he said at length, 'but the stakes are
too small to make it really exciting. I'll try my luck, just for the
experience. I'm bound to win.'

'Why?' asked the Prince.

'Because I always do, in games of chance,' Racksole answered with gay
confidence. 'It is my fate. Then to-night, you must remember, I shall be
a beginner, and you know the tyro's luck.'

In ten minutes the croupier of that table was obliged to suspend
operations pending the arrival of a further supply of coin.

'What did I tell you?' said Racksole, leading the way to another table
further up the room. A hundred curious glances went after him. One old
woman, whose gay attire suggested a false youthfulness, begged him in
French to stake a five-franc piece for her. She offered him the coin. He
took it, and gave her a hundred-franc note in exchange. She clutched the
crisp rustling paper, and with hysterical haste scuttled back to her own
table.

At the second table there was a considerable air of excitement. In the
forefront of the players was a woman in a low-cut evening dress of
black silk and a large red picture hat. Her age appeared to be about
twenty-eight; she had dark eyes, full lips, and a distinctly Jewish
nose. She was handsome, but her beauty was of that forbidding, sinister
order which is often called Junoesque. This woman was the centre of
attraction. People said to each other that she had won a hundred and
sixty thousand francs that day at the table.

'You were right,' Prince Aribert whispered to Theodore Racksole; 'that
is the Berlin lady.'

'The deuce she is! Has she seen you? Will she know you?'

'She would probably know me, but she hasn't looked up yet.'

'Keep behind her, then. I propose to find her a little occupation.' By
dint of a carefully-exercised diplomacy, Racksole manoeuvred himself
into a seat opposite to the lady in the red hat. The fame of his success
at the other table had followed him, and people regarded him as a
serious and formidable player. In the first turn the lady put a thousand
fra