Even the new rooms were crowded, and preoccupied as he was, it struck Vanno oddly, as it always did strike him anew in the Casino, to hear every one who passed talking of the all-absorbing game. They were obsessed by it, and threw questions to each other, which elsewhere would have meant nothing, or some very different thing; but here no explanations were needed. "Doing any good?" asked a pallid young man with a twitching face, like that of a galvanized corpse, as he met a weary-eyed woman in mourning, whose bare hands glittered with rings. "No," she answered peevishly. "You never saw such tables—all running to intermittences. Nobody can do anything, except the old man who lives on two-one." Then the pair began speaking of Miss Grant, for her name was common property. She was one of the celebrities of the season.

Vanno went on, pausing at each table in the immense Empire room, whose pale green walls glittered with Buonaparte's golden bees; and everywhere he heard the same questions: "How are you doing? Tables treating you well?" Or, "Have you seen Miss Grant? She's simply throwing away money to-night. I'm afraid her luck's out."

There was something ominous and fatal in these words, repeated again and again, with variations. "Poor Miss Grant! Her luck is out." All these gamblers discussing her affairs, commenting, criticising, bewailing the end of her long run of luck. The idea came to Vanno that it was like a chanting chorus in a Greek tragedy; but he thrust the thought out of his mind with violence. He could not bear to associate Mary with tragedy. She was not made for a life and a place like this, where pain and passion and heartburning lie in sharp contrast of shadow side by side with sunshine and flowers. Vanno would have liked to spirit her away out of this garden of painted lilies, to a sweet, old-fashioned garden where pure white Madonna lilies lined the quiet paths. If only she had listened to him last night, how different might have been her Christmas day and his!

Presently he saw Dick Carleton, standing on the outer edge of a crowd which had collected round one of the tables farthest from the entrance. He was peering over people's heads, frowning, his hands deep in his pockets. Then Vanno knew that he need look no farther for Mary.

He was taller than Dick, and almost pushing his way to a place, he saw Mary seated at the opposite side of the table. She sat at the left of a croupier, who was helping her to place her numerous stakes. Beside her was Lady Dauntrey, and behind her chair, tall and pale and very haggard, Lord Dauntrey stood. Vanno guessed, with a mingling of relief and regret, that Mary must have gone to live at the Villa Bella Vista.

The ball spun round, rested in the pocket of number 11, and all Mary's stakes were swept away.

"That's the eighth time in succession she's lost maximums round twenty-four," mumbled a man close to Vanno's shoulder, in a young, weak voice.

"She deserves it, for being an idiot," petulantly replied a woman, in French, though the man had spoken in English. "I was her mascotte. I showed her how to play and how to win; but I was not good enough for her when she began making grand friends. Some women are so disloyal! She has hurt me to the heart."

Vanno glanced down impatiently, and saw the woman who had been with Mary on her first night at the Casino. He remembered the faded, white-rose face, with its peevish crumples that were not yet lines, and the false little smile that tried to draw attention away from them. He noticed that she was no longer shabby, but wore a smart new dress and hat, with a huge boa of ostrich feathers half covering her thin, bare neck. There was a glint of jewels about her as she moved. The man with the young, weak voice gazed at her admiringly, with a half-pitiful, half-comic air of pride in being seen with so chic a creature.

"Never you mind. We men ain't disloyal, anyhow," he consoled her. She smiled at him pathetically, and his pale blue eyes, like those of a faded Dresden china shepherd, returned her look with ecstasy.

"That wretched boy will marry the woman," was the thought that jumped into Vanno's mind. He recognized the insignificant face, with its receding chin and forehead, as that of a very young baronet, the last of a degenerate family, weak of intellect, strong only in his craze for jewels and horses. He had been in love with two or three English girls, and one noted American beauty, but all, though comparatively poor, had refused him, saying that one "must draw the line somewhere, and he was the limit." Madeleine d'Ambre would not be fastidious. The brief revelation, like something seen in the flare of a match that quickly dies out, struck Vanno with pity and disgust. But a youth of this calibre was sure sooner or later to drift to Monte Carlo; and perhaps the Frenchwoman's leading strings would be better for him than none.

Again the wheel spun round, and Mary lost several piles of gold and notes. It seemed to Vanno that she was changed not only in expression, but even in features. The outline of her face looked sharper, thinner, less girlish. Her eyes, very wide open, were bright, but not with their own happy brightness, like a reflection of sunlight. They were more like thick glass through which a fire can be seen dimly burning: and she looked astonished, piteous, as a child looks when it has been seized and whipped for a fault committed in ignorance. She seemed to be saying to herself dazedly, "What has happened to me? Why should I be punished?" High on each cheek burned a round spot of bright rose colour.

Sometimes Lady Dauntrey spoke to her, and Lord Dauntrey bent down and appeared to advise. At first Mary shook her head, with a quivering smile; but when the piles of money continued to be swept away, she lost confidence in herself, and accepted their suggestions. Evidently she tried to follow the new plan of action, whatever it was, but her luck did not change for the better. Almost invariably her stakes, no matter where placed, were taken from her. Even the croupiers looked surprised. From time to time they darted at her glances of interest.

A great longing to be near, to protect her with love and sympathy, rushed over Vanno. He forgot that she was angry with him, or that he had given her cause for anger. He remembered only his love, and the instinctive knowledge he had in spite of all, that her heart was for him. He felt, unreasonably yet intensely, that if he were to sit at the table where she could see him and receive the magnetic current of his love, she would come to herself; that she would stop fighting this demon of misfortune; that she would be filled with strength and comfort, and would know what was best to do.

As if moved by the force of Vanno's will, a man got up from a chair directly in front. It was Captain Hannaford, who looked less impassive than usual. His somewhat secretive face was flushed, and he was frowning. Without appearing to see the Prince, or Dick Carleton, who was on the point of speaking, he walked quickly away from the table as if anxious to escape. Almost savagely, Vanno grasped the back of the chair and flung himself into it, though Madeleine d'Ambre had been on the point of sitting down. A moment later Hannaford strolled back, having changed his mind for some reason; but Vanno had already forgotten him. He remembered only Mary, for she had glanced up for an instant, and their eyes had met, his imploring, hers startled, then hastily averted.

Hannaford stood shoulder to shoulder with Carleton, who nodded and spoke. "I wish we could get her to stop! I've tried—came over from the Sporting Club on purpose, but she won't listen to me."

"We can't do anything with her at the table," said Hannaford.

"Norwood told me she was losing a lot, and I ran across from the Sporting Club," Dick went on. "No good, I suppose, as you say. One can't keep whispering a stream of good advice down the back of people's necks. Only a very special kind of an ass tries that twice: but still, I did hope——"

"Yes, there's that 'but still' feeling, isn't there?" Hannaford smiled his tired smile, that never brightened. "I was going to cut it, because she was getting on my nerves a bit. But I've come back to hang around, as you're doing, and try the effect of will power, though I'm afraid it won't work."

"It seems a vile table," Dick remarked.

"It's got a grudge against Miss Grant apparently, but it was all right for me till I began to get nervy, watching her lose."

"You won?"

"Yes, and felt a beast—as if I were taking her money. Whenever I was on one colour, she seemed always to choose a number on the other. I've got enough money to buy my villa now, thanks to this night's work; so I shall consider it a Christmas gift from the dear old Casino."

"Hurrah!" said Dick, his eyes always on the table and Mary's play. "I'm glad some one's in luck, anyhow." He had heard from Rose Winter, and from Hannaford himself, of the negotiations for Madame Rachel Berenger's place just across the Italian frontier. Every one knew of her wild play at the Casino and of her losses, which were now so great that she wished to sell the old chÂteau which she had bought after her retirement from the stage; and Hannaford's friends were aware that for some months he had been quietly bargaining for it. His ambition was to buy the place out of his winnings, but until to-night they had not reached the price asked by the old actress. Twenty years ago she had paid two hundred thousand francs for the huge house, almost in ruin. Later she had spent nearly as much again in restoring it, and creating a garden which for a while had been the marvel of the coast. Long ago, however, it had gone back to wilderness. The splendid furniture imported by Madame Berenger from the palace of an impoverished Bourbon princess had lost its gilding and its rich brocade of silk and velvet. Two discouraged servants remained with her, out of a staff of twelve. Once there had been ten gardeners; now there was none; and the one hope left for this lost palace of sleep was in a new ownership. The whole place smelt of decay and desolation, yet to Hannaford it was more attractive than such a beautiful and prosperous domain as Schuyler's Stellamare. The sad loveliness of the old house and the old garden made a special appeal to him. He wanted to save the ChÂteau Lontana from ruin, and felt superstitiously that the interest he would find in such a task might redeem him from the desolation which, like a high wall, rose between him and life.

Something of this feeling Mrs. Winter had gathered from Hannaford, though he had never put it in words, and Dick knew she would be glad of to-night's news. It was no secret that Madame Berenger had refused to accept less than three hundred thousand francs; therefore Dick sprang to the conclusion that this must be the sum of Hannaford's winnings.

"I congratulate you heartily," he said. "My cousin will be delighted. She likes you, and has been interested about the ChÂteau Lontana."

"She's been very kind and sympathetic. No wonder everybody loves her! I know what she'll want to say now, even if she doesn't say it. 'Pay for your chÂteau, and play no more.' Well, if you see her sooner than I do, please tell Mrs. Winter I'm going to take her advice before I get it—to a certain extent. Not a louis do I risk till the place is mine. Then—perhaps I'll follow my luck, and try to make the Casino help me restore the house and garden. Not that I want to do much, only enough to make the place habitable, and give the flowers a chance to breathe."

"Then you mean to live there?"

"For a while at all events. Perhaps not long. Who knows what one may do? But I shall have the pleasure of knowing it's mine."

Dick, though interested, had fallen into absent-mindedness. Two or three persons having slipped away, he was able to get nearer the table, and to see more clearly what Mary was doing. It almost seemed that if he and Hannaford concentrated their whole minds upon willing her to stop play for the night, she must feel the influence. Her luck was out, certainly. She had lost a great deal, but she had a goodly store of winnings to fall back upon.

"Let's will her hard, to leave off," he suggested, half ashamed of the proposal, yet secretly in earnest.

Hannaford smiled indulgence. "All right," he said. "Here goes!"

Vanno Della Robbia less deliberately yet with more ardour had thrown himself into the same experiment. He thought that Mary's anger against him might have one good result: in making her wish to leave the table where he had come to sit. She could scarcely fall upon worse luck elsewhere, and perhaps she might give up play for the evening if she went away from this unlucky corner. If a wish of his could be granted by fate, she would never play again. Yet, desiring this with all the force that was in him, he began nevertheless to gamble, for the first time since coming to Monte Carlo. No conscientious scruple had held him back hitherto; but the game had not appealed to him. He disliked the crowding, the sordidness and vulgarity which, to his mind, attended it; and it seemed to him that public gambling was an unintelligent, greedy vice.

His idea in putting on money now was merely to "pay for his place," whence he did not mean to move as long as Mary stayed. Many other men would be ready to snatch the chair the instant he abandoned it, therefore he had no right to usurp the Casino's property without payment. He had no small money with him, and to avoid the trouble of changing notes with a croupier, he staked a hundred francs on red, the colour of the number which Lord Dauntrey had just advised Mary to choose.

As if she fully realized that her luck had failed her to-night, for several spins she had been guided entirely by Lord Dauntrey. He was directing her play according to his system, to which his faith still desperately clung, though he now admitted to his friends that his own capital was not big enough to test it fairly. His game was upon numbers, columns, and dozens, all at the same time, increasing the stakes, as he said, "with the bank's money," or, in other words, after a win. It was therefore a loss following directly upon a win which was the worst enemy of the system, and occasionally there came a long run of exactly this alternation: win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. It happened so to-night, greatly to his annoyance, as he hoped to interest Miss Grant in his method. Dom Ferdinand was sulkily waiting for more remittances, and amusing himself meanwhile by throwing about a few louis here and there, undirected by his friend Lord Dauntrey. The Marquis de Casablanca had stopped play entirely, perhaps in the hope of setting his patron a wise example. The Collises had never been useful. Dodo Wardropp liked to gamble "on her own," and Mrs. Ernstein, though rich, was a coward when it came to risking her money at the tables. Others in the house made themselves as irritating to Lord Dauntrey in their selfish obstinacy as Dodo; and all his hopes centred upon Mary. She was a lamb whom his wife had cleverly caught in the bushes, a lamb with golden fleece. He would have liked above all things to help her win this first night; but curiously enough she lost monotonously, no matter what game she tried, unless Prince Giovanni Della Robbia pushed money on to some chance where her stake happened to lie. Then and then only she won; so that if she inclined to superstition (as did most women at the tables) she would believe that not Lord Dauntrey but the Roman "brought her luck." Nevertheless she seemed vexed rather than pleased when the Prince (whom Dauntrey knew by sight and name) fixed upon a chance where she had staked. Presently, though she won four times running when this occurred, she kept back her money until the last, staking only just before the croupier's "Rien ne va plus," to prevent Della Robbia from following her lead. At last, she got up impatiently. "I am tired!" she said, in a voice that trembled slightly. "I hardly know what I'm doing."

Mary did not pick up the money—comparatively little—which was the remnant of her losses, and Dauntrey asked sympathetically if she would like him to play for her, according to the plan they had begun to follow out.

"Yes, if you please," she replied, seeming to attach no importance to her answer or to the small pile of gold and notes, all that remained of a hundred thousand francs with which she had begun the evening.

Without another glance at the table, or a flicker of the lashes at Vanno, she turned away; and after a whispered word or two in Lord Dauntrey's ear, Eve went with her, in the direction of the Salle Schmidt.

Vanno had an immediate impulse to rise, but common sense forbade. Mary had so unmistakably shown her dislike of his presence, and the association of his play with hers, that it was impossible for him to follow her. Though he detested Lady Dauntrey, in his heart he preferred her to a man as a companion for Mary, even a man like Dick Carleton; and for the moment the jealousy he could not control was at rest. Seeing that Lord Dauntrey's weary eyes were fixed upon him, he continued to play, as if he had not noticed Mary's going. By and by the game began to absorb him in a way he would not have believed possible. He became excited, with an odd, tense excitement which had an almost fierce joy in it. Never before had he felt an emotion exactly like this, except once, when in India he and a friend had lain in wait for a man-eating tiger, in the night, at the tiger's drinking place. Dimly it amused him to compare this sensation with the other; and it surprised him, too, that he should feel as he felt now; for gambling had always seemed to him not only greedy and sordid and vulgar, but a stupid way of passing the time, unworthy a man or woman of sense and breeding.

To his own amazement, the pleasure of the game was balm for the heartache Mary had made him suffer. He did not forget her, or his repentance, or the determination to right himself in her eyes; yet the hot throb of his anxiety was soothed, as by an opiate. What he felt for Mary was but a part of this keen emotion that flowed through him like a tide.

He remembered the prophecy of his friend the astrologer, in the Libyan desert, that his star in the ascendant would bring him good fortune this month of December. Certainly he had not found luck in love. Perhaps it was to come to him through gambling. He wondered if there could be any possible connection between the stars and the actions of a man, or the chances of a game like roulette. Though his studies of the stars had been confined to astronomy, the romance in him, and the dreamer's love of mystery, refused to shut the door on belief in another branch of the same science. It was enormously interesting to think that perhaps the stars, the planets, controlled this tiny sphere of ivory in its mad dash round the revolving wheel. Since the whole universe was made up of marvels almost beyond credence, who with certainty could say "no?"

Vanno was not rich. He had no more than thirty thousand francs a year, left him by his mother, and had refused an extra allowance from the Duke. It had been his pride to live within his income, all through his travels, and despite his love of collecting rare books. His father had given him his observatory at Monte Della Robbia, but nothing else of importance. His invention was beginning to bring him in a little, but it would never make a fortune; and he was not one who could afford a "flutter" at Monte Carlo without counting the cost. To-night, however, after winning some thousands of francs, it did not occur to him—as it might if some other man in his circumstances had been concerned—that it would be wise to stop. The spin of the wheel began to exert a fascination over his mind, appealing to all that was adventurous in him. Not once was he conscious of putting on a stake for the sake of the money it might gain; not once did he hesitate from fear of loss. It was the call of the unknown that lured him, the thrilling doubt as to where the ball would stop.

The little dancing white thing, magical as a silver bullet, seemed a miniature incarnation of destiny, spinning his fate. Always Vanno was pricked by the desire to try again, and see if he could once more foretell the result. There lay the poignant, the indescribable charm: in not knowing.

He saw now that he had misjudged gamblers in believing them all to be mercenary, at least at the moment of gambling. Some might be so, many perhaps; but he began to realize that the chief appeal was to the imaginative temperament, such as he knew his own, and guessed Mary's, to be.

When his stake was larger than usual—larger a good deal than he could afford in prudence—he revelled in the uncertainty of the event which he intensely desired. And it dawned in his mind that this was the true intoxication of the gambler, the delicious anguish of playing with the unknown. It was a more dangerous intoxication than he had supposed it to be, because more subtle, as the effect of cocaine or morphia is more insidious than that of alcohol.

Like a hunter, he pursued the game until, to his great surprise, a croupier announced, "Les trois derniers." It was almost impossible to believe that he had sat at the table for hours.

By this time Vanno had abandoned all attempt to check his winnings and losses. It was not until he had gathered up his money and counted it on leaving the table that he knew he had lost not only his winnings, but three thousand francs besides. The discovery filled him with a peculiar, bitter annoyance, as if an alkaloid fluid ran through his veins: and this not because of the loss, which was comparatively insignificant, but because he had failed, because he had been ignominiously beaten by the bank. He had had his luck, and had stupidly thrown it away, after the manner of all those fools for whom he had felt a superior, pitying contempt. Still, he was not sorry that he had played. His short experience of roulette and the curious exhilaration the spin of the wheel had given brought him nearer to understanding Mary than he had ever come before, or could have come otherwise. Also, his combativeness was roused. His nerves seemed to quiver, to bristle with an angry determination to justify himself in his own eyes, and to have his revenge upon the brutal power of the bank.

"I'll get it all back from them to-morrow," he thought, "and more besides. I won't be beaten. And when I've done something worth doing, I'll stop. That's the way to gamble."