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Updated: June 23, 2025
Lights! Green tables, gold-bespattered! The droning undertone of croupiers; the continual, languid in-rake and out-rake of golden piles, of crackling notes, of rouleaux on one of which the old-time Joseph could have lived so well for months: here, side by side, the much-remarked woman, the pale-faced, angel-eyed youth, quietly took their places, and began to play.
He found himself after dinner therefore in the Casino at Monte Carlo, in a room flooded with light and with many people present a quiet room for all that, for there was little sound except the monotonous cry of croupiers and the sharp rattle of a ricochetting roulette ball.
The almost incessant whine of racing ivory balls with their clattering over the metal compartments of the roulette wheels, clicking of chips, dispassionate voices of croupiers, and an occasional low-pitched comment on the part of one or another of the patrons, seemed only to lend emphasis to the hush. The warmth of the room was noticeable....
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.
Look at the Kursaal, its luxuries, its gardens, its gilding, its attractions, all of them cheap, except the one that pays for all; all these delights, and the rents, and the croupiers, and the servants, and the income and liveries of an unprincipled prince, who would otherwise be a poor but honest gentleman with one bonne, instead of thirty blazing lackeys, all come from the gains of the bank, which are the losses of the players, especially of those that have got a system."
But this was not enough for Lady Glencora. She was anxious to know what these men and women were doing, to see whether the croupiers wore horns on their heads and were devils indeed, to behold the faces of those who were wretched and and of those who were triumphant, to know how the thing was done, and to learn something of that lesson in life.
The croupiers at that table are ever watchful of the visitor who, all unawares, occupies that fatal chair. But Mademoiselle, who knew of it, always laughed the superstition to scorn. She habitually sat in that chair and won. Indeed, that afternoon she was winning and very considerably too.
The room, indeed, was singularly quiet for one that harboured some two-score players in addition to a full corps of dealers, croupiers, watchers, and waiters.
The Devil was certainly in the ball: round it twirled, and dropped into zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond. Our friend received five hundred pounds for his stake; and the croupiers and lookers-on began to stare at him. There were twelve thousand pounds upon the table.
Trente-et-quarante interested her but little; she preferred roulette, with its ever-revolving wheel. Many a lorgnette I saw turned in her direction, and the croupiers' hopes rose high that such an eccentric player was about to provide them with something out of the common. An old lady of seventy-five years who, though unable to walk, desired to play was not an everyday phenomenon.
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