s
explanation of Siegfried's hatred of the play-table.

He very soon found out what he was accused of; and, being large-minded
and liberal--hating nothing so much as avarice--he determined to show
his calumniators how much they were mistaken, and--much as he detested
play--sacrifice a hundred Louis d'Ors or so--more if necessary--to
prove to them their error. He went to the faro-table with the firm
resolution to lose the rather considerable sum which he had in his
pocket. But the luck which accompanied him in everything he set about
was true to him here too. Everything he staked on won. His luck
shipwrecked the cabalistic calculations of the old, deeply experienced
gamblers. It was all the same whether he exchanged his cards, or stuck
to them; he always won. He furnished a unique instance of a _ponteur_
wild with disgust because the cards favoured him. The by-standers,
watching him, shook their heads significantly at each other, implying
that the Baron might come to lose his head, carried along by this
concatenation of the unusual. For indeed, a man who was furious because
he was lucky, must surely be a _little_ off his head.

The very circumstance that he had won a considerable sum necessitated
him to go on playing; and as this gain must, in all probability, be
followed by a still greater loss, he felt bound to carry out his
original plan. However, he found it not so easy; his extraordinary luck
continued to stick to him.

Without his exactly noticing it himself, a love for the game of Faro
arose within him, and grew. In its very simpleness, Faro is, in truth,
the most mysterious of all games.

He was not annoyed at being lucky _now_. The game fettered his
attention, and kept him absorbed in it, night after night, till
morning. As it was not the winning which interested him, but the game
itself, he was forced to admit the existence of that extraordinary
_spell_ connected with it which his friends had spoken of to him, but
which he had refused to believe in.

One night when the banker had just finished a "taille," on looking up
he saw an elderly man, who had placed himself opposite to him, and was
keeping a grave, melancholy gaze fixed upon him. And every time
Siegfried looked up from his game, he found this grave, melancholy gaze
still fixed upon him, so that he could not divest himself of a strong,
rather eery sensation. The Stranger did not go away till the playing
was over for the night. Next evening he was th