y-shaped
form, and his scanty fair hair in its natural curls.

He looked only about twenty-five years of age, and any trace of vice
in his face seemed to be there by accident. A young constitution still
resisted the inroads of lubricity. Darkness and light, annihilation and
existence, seemed to struggle in him, with effects of mingled beauty
and terror. There he stood like some erring angel that has lost his
radiance; and these emeritus-professors of vice and shame were ready to
bid the novice depart, even as some toothless crone might be seized with
pity for a beautiful girl who offers herself up to infamy.

The young man went straight up to the table, and, as he stood
there, flung down a piece of gold which he held in his hand, without
deliberation. It rolled on to the Black; then, as strong natures can,
he looked calmly, if anxiously, at the croupier, as if he held useless
subterfuges in scorn.

The interest this coup awakened was so great that the old gamesters laid
nothing upon it; only the Italian, inspired by a gambler's enthusiasm,
smiled suddenly at some thought, and punted his heap of coin against the
stranger's stake.

The banker forgot to pronounce the phrases that use and wont have
reduced to an inarticulate cry--"Make your game.... The game is made....
Bets are closed." The croupier spread out the cards, and seemed to wish
luck to the newcomer, indifferent as he was to the losses or gains of
those who took part in these sombre pleasures. Every bystander thought
he saw a drama, the closing scene of a noble life, in the fortunes of
that bit of gold; and eagerly fixed his eyes on the prophetic cards; but
however closely they watched the young man, they could discover not the
least sign of feeling on his cool but restless face.

"Even! red wins," said the croupier officially. A dumb sort of rattle
came from the Italian's throat when he saw the folded notes that
the banker showered upon him, one after another. The young man only
understood his calamity when the croupiers's rake was extended to sweep
away his last napoleon. The ivory touched the coin with a little click,
as it swept it with the speed of an arrow into the heap of gold before
the bank. The stranger turned pale at the lips, and softly shut his
eyes, but he unclosed them again at once, and the red color returned
as he affected the airs of an Englishman, to whom life can offer no
new sensation, and disappeared without the glance full of entreaty