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Monsters they are, all of them, to the eye, though I believe that many of them have excellent moral qualities in private life; but just as in an American town one goes sooner or later goes against one's finer judgment, but somehow goes into the dime-museum, so year by year, in Dieppe's race-week, there would be always one evening when I drifted into the baccarat-room.
Enough that my faith was rewarded: we did arrive safely in Dieppe. I still marvel that we did. That evening, in the vestibule of the casino, Grierson came up to me. "Seen Jimmy Pethel?" he asked. "He was asking for you. Wants to see you particularly. He's in the baccarat-room, punting, winning hand over fist, OF course. Said he'd seldom met a man he liked more than you. Great character, what?"
Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "if I thought I had any more chance of winning than of losing, I'd I'd " "Never again set foot in that baccarat-room to-night," I soothingly suggested. "Oh, baccarat be blowed! I wasn't thinking of baccarat. I was thinking of oh, lots of things; baccarat included, yes." "What things?" I ventured to ask. "What things?" He pushed back his chair.
One is always glad to be liked, and I pleaded guilty to a moment's gratification at the announcement that Pethel liked me. But I did not go and seek him in the baccarat-room. Why he had particularly wanted to see me was made clear in a note sent by him to my room early next morning. He wondered if I could be induced to join them in their little tour.
In the dining-room of the Villa he hardly ever spoke to her, and when they were both in the Baccarat-room of the Club he seldom came and stood by her side, though when she looked up she often found his eyes fixed on her with that ardent, absorbed gaze which made her heart beat, and her cheeks flush with mingled joy and pain.
And very fresh it looked, though, as he confessed, Pethel had sat up in "that beastly baccarat-room" till five A.M. I asked, had he lost? "By the way," he murmured as we were about to enter the hall, "don't ever happen to mention to my wife what I told you about that Argentine deal. She's always rather nervous about investments. I don't tell her about them.
I have a nurse here who has been twelve months in the operating theatre. She ought to have a V.C.! It's worth it." And here is a dark-eyed young officer who had come from a distant colony to fight for England. I find him in an officer's hospital, established not long after the war broke out, in a former Casino, where the huge baccarat-room has been turned into two large and splendid wards.
The cercle or casino and its succursale the Villa des Fleurs, with their many spacious rooms, reading-room, concert-room, baccarat-room, their restaurants, their beautiful gardens, are thronged at all hours of the day with the smart folk of all nationalities.
We disliked the nightly crush in the baccarat-room of the casino, and the croupiers' obvious excitement at the high play. I made a point of avoiding that room during that week, for the special reason that the sight of serious, habitual gamblers has always filled me with a depression bordering on disgust.
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