I've suddenly grown awfully
selfish, for I find I'm so ridiculous as only to want things for
myself----"

(When he stopped she did not help him but, instead, persisted gently
with the wicked feminine way she had of urging him, tempting him on.)

"What, then, what do you wish? Can't you tell me?"

He laughed almost roughly and said, "No, it's a secret, and I'm one of
those unusual creatures who can keep a secret."

The woman's face changed. He saw the shadow that crossed it. "Come,"
she sighed, "you must bid me good-night..."

And at this moment he had seen Jack Falconer emerge from a still more
shadowy corner, a cigar between his teeth. Drawing his wife's arm
through his, Falconer nodded to the other man and said they had all
better be going up. Bulstrode noted bitterly the satisfaction on
Falconer's bestial, indulgent face and the content that man felt with
himself this evening, his triumph at the race's termination. His horse
had won the stakes and was famous, his wife had been called to-day the
loveliest woman in Trouville, and not for the first time Bulstrode
suffered from it, the proprietorship with which Falconer considered his
wife. For the smallest part of a second he fancied that the woman drew
away, half turned away, looked toward him; and in dread that he might,
if he met her eyes, see some look like appeal, Bulstrode avoided
meeting her glance. He saw them pass under the glass roof of the hotel
leaving him standing alone.

The deserted lover waited until they had disappeared; then, turning
abruptly, vaguely in search of human beings with whom he might exchange
a word should he feel inclined to talk, dreading the deserted gardens
ami finding his own rooms the dreariest prospect of all, he went into
the Casino with the intention of waiting for the Frenchman who he
thought more than likely would come and join him there. The Marquis
failing him, Bulstrode chose a place not far from the table where the
lovely woman, that Mrs. Falconer and himself had remarked, seated
herself before the game.

Bulstrode's sense of desolation and loneliness would not leave him. If
his luck had been bad, the excitement of the sport might have brought
him some sensation; but, on the contrary, he won. "Only," he said
humorously, as he gathered up his winnings, "only unlucky in love!"

It was well on in the night when he thrust his last roll of bank notes
into his pocket. He had beaten the bank; he had raked up an