representing a louis, gave them
to the croupier, exclaiming:

"_Zero-trois!_"

Next moment a dozen persons followed her play, staking their cent-sous
and louis upon the spot where she had asked the croupier at the end of
the table to place her stake.

"_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux!_" came the strident cry again.

Then a few seconds later the croupier cried:

"_Rien ne vas plus!_"

The red and black wheel was already spinning, and the little ivory
ball sent by the croupier's hand in the opposite direction was clicking
quickly over the numbered spaces.

Six hundred or more eyes of men and women, fevered by the gambling
mania, watched the result. Slowly it lost its impetus, and after
spinning about unevenly it made a final jump and fell with a loud click.

"_Zer-r-o!_" cried the croupier.

And a moment later Mademoiselle had pushed before her at the end of
the croupier's rake another pile of counters, while all those who had
followed the remarkable woman's play were also paid.

"Mademoiselle is in good form to-day," remarked one ugly old Frenchwoman
who had been a well-known figure at the tables for the past ten years,
and who played carefully and lived by gambling. She was one of those
queer, mysterious old creatures who enter the Rooms each morning as soon
as they are open, secure the best seats, occupy them all the luncheon
hour pretending to play, and then sell them to wealthy gamblers for a
consideration--two or three louis--perhaps--and then at once go to their
ease in their own obscure abode.

The public who go to Monte know little of its strange mysteries, or of
the odd people who pick up livings there in all sorts of queer ways.

"Ah!" exclaimed a man who overheard her. "Mademoiselle has wonderful
luck! She won seventy-five thousand francs at the _Cercle Prive_ last
night. She won _en plein_ five times running. _Dieu!_ Such luck! And it
never causes her the slightest excitement."

"The lady must be very rich!" remarked an American woman sitting next to
the old Frenchwoman, and who knew French well.

"Rich! Of course! She must have won several million francs from the
Administration. They don't like to see her here. But I suppose her
success attracts others to play. The gambling fever is as infectious
as the influenza," declared the old Frenchwoman. "Everyone tries to
discover who she is, and where she came from five years ago. But nobody
has yet found out. Even Monsieur Bernard, the chief of the Su