ol di Tenda. Sospel is lovely!"
declared Dorise's mother. "Have you ever been there?" she asked of
Brock, who was an habitue of the Riviera.

"Once and only once. I motored from Nice across to Turin," was his
reply. "Yes. It is truly a lovely run there. The Alps are gorgeous. I
like San Dalmazzo and the chestnut groves there," he added. "But the
frontiers are annoying. All those restrictions. Nevertheless, the run to
Turin is one of the finest I know."

Presently they rose, and all four walked into the crowded
_salle-a-manger_, where the chatter was in every European language, and
the gay crowd were gossiping mostly of their luck or their bad fortune
at the _tapis vert_. At Monte Carlo the talk is always of the run of
sequences, the many times the zero-trois has turned up, and of how
little one ever wins _en plein_ on thirty-six.

To those who visit "Charley's Mount" for the first time all this is as
Yiddish, but soon he or she, when initiated into the games of roulette
and trente-et-quarante, quickly gets bitten by the fever and enters into
the spirit of the discussions. They produce their "records"--printed
cards in red and black numbers with which they have carefully pricked
off the winning numbers with a pin as they have turned up.

The quartette enjoyed a costly but exquisite dinner, chatting and
laughing the while.

Both men were friends of Lady Ranscomb and frequent visitors to her fine
house in Mount Street. Hugh's father, a country landowner, had known Sir
Richard for many years, while Walter Brock had made the acquaintance of
Lady Ranscomb a couple of years ago in connexion with some charity in
which she had been interested.

Both were also good friends of Dorise. Both were excellent dancers, and
Lady Ranscomb often allowed them to take her daughter to the Grafton,
Ciro's, or the Embassy. Lady Ranscomb was Hugh's old friend, and he
and Dorise having been thrown together a good deal ever since the girl
returned from Versailles after finishing her education, it was hardly
surprising that the pair should have fallen in love with each other.

As they sat opposite each other that night, the young fellow gazed into
her wonderful blue eyes, yet, alas! with a sinking heart. How could they
ever marry?

He had about six hundred a year--only just sufficient to live upon
in these days. His father had never put him to anything since he left
Brasenose, and now on his death he had found that, in order to recover
th