th the
doorkeeper's averment that Mr. Bailey Penfield was out, persuaded P.
Sybarite that this last was neither more nor less than the proprietor
of the premises. But this conclusion perturbed, completely unsettling
his conviction regarding the _soi-disant_ Miss Lessing; he couldn't
imagine either her or Miss Marian Blessington in any way involved with
a common (or even a proper) gambler.

To feel obliged constantly to revise his hasty inferences, he
considered tremendously tiresome. It left one all up in the air!

His tour ended at last in a pause by the roulette table at the rear of
the room. Curious to watch the game in being, he lingered there, head
cocked shrewdly on one shoulder, a speculative pensiveness informing
his eyes, his interest plainly aloof and impersonal. This despite the
fact that his emotions of intestinal felicity were momentarily
becoming more intense: the torchlight procession was in full swing,
leaving an enduring refulgence wherever it passed.

There were perhaps half a dozen players round the board--four on one
wing, two on the other. Of the latter, one was that very young man who
had been responsible for P. Sybarite's change of mind with regard to
going home. With a bored air this prodigal was frittering away
five-dollar notes on the colours, the columns, and the dozens: his ill
success stupendous, his apparent indifference positively magnificent.
But in the course of the little while that P. Sybarite watched, he
either grew weary or succeeded in emptying his pockets, and ceasing to
play, sat back with a grunt of impatience more than of disgust.

The ball ran its course thrice before he moved. Then abruptly lifting
his finger to the croupier: "Five on the red, Andy," said he.

"Five on the red," repeated the croupier; and set aside a
chocolate-coloured chip in memorandum of the wager.

When the ball settled again to rest, the announcement was monotonously
recited: "Nine, red, odd, first dozen." And the blase prodigal was
presented with the chocolate-coloured token.

Carelessly he tossed it upon the red diamond. Black won. Unperturbed,
he made a second oral bet, this time on black, and lost; increased his
wager to ten dollars on black--and lost; made it twenty, shifted to
red, and lost; dropped back to five-dollar bets for three turns of the
wheel, and lost them all. Fifty dollars in debt to the house, he rose,
nodded casually to the croupier, left the room.

In mingled envy and amazem