the table was turned into a champagne bar; it
bristled with bottles in all stages of depletion, with still an unopened
magnum towering over pails of ice, silver dishes of bonbons, cut
decanters of wine and spirits. At the other end a cluster of flushed
faces hung over a spinning roulette wheel; nearly all young women and
men, smoking fiercely in a silver haze, for the moment terribly intent;
and as the ball ticked and rattled, the one pale face present, that of
the melancholy croupier, showed a dry zest as he intoned the customary
admonitions. They were new to me then; now I seem to recognise through
the years the Anglo-French of his "_rien ne va plus_" and all the rest.
There were notes and gold among the stakes. The old rogue raked in his
share without emotion; one of the ladies embraced him for hers; and one
had stuck a sprig of maidenhair in his venerable locks; but there he
sat, with the deferential dignity of a bygone school, the only very
sober member of the party it was his shame to serve.

The din they made before the next spin! It was worse when it died down
into plainer speech; playful buffets were exchanged as freely; but one
young blood left the table with a deadly dose of raw spirit, and sat
glowering over it on a raised settee while the wheel went round again. I
did not watch the play; the wild, attentive faces were enough for me;
and so it was that I saw a bedizened beauty go mad before my eyes. It
was the madness of utter ecstasy--wails of laughter and happy
maledictions--and then for that unopened magnum! By the neck she caught
it, whirled it about her like an Indian club, then down on the table
with all her might and the effect of a veritable shell. A ribbon of
blood ran down her dress as she recoiled, and the champagne flooded the
green board like bubbling ink; but the old croupier hardly looked up
from the pile of notes and gold that he was counting out with his sly,
wintry smile.

[Illustration: I saw a bedizened beauty go mad before my eyes.]

"You saw she had a fiver on the number? You may watch roulette many a
long night without seeing that again!"

It was Delavoye whispering as he dragged me away. He was the cool one
now. Too excitable for me in the early stages of our adventure, he was
not only the very man for all the rest, but a living lesson in just that
thing or two I felt at first I could have taught him. For I fear I
should have felled that butler if he had seen us in the cigar cella