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The fat stacks of French banknotes were extracted with some effort from the hand-bag into which they had been stuffed. Captain Hannaford and Schuyler counted while the others watched, Carleton with amused interest, Mary with comparative indifference, because the actual money meant less to her than the thrill of winning it, and Madame d'Ambre on the verge of tears.
Keep close to me; that is all you need do." Mary obeyed in silence. She was grateful to her guide, yet somehow she was unable to like her as well as at first. Fragile as Madame d'Ambre appeared, she must have had a metallic strength of will, if not of muscle, for quietly yet relentlessly she insinuated herself in front of other people grouped round the table.
Her unconscious vanity rebelled against risking loss at this table of which she had been the queen, the idol. She rose, pale and suddenly tired. "I won't play any more," she said, in a little voice, like a child's. "Oh, why?" asked the young man with the straw-coloured hair. "I don't know why," she answered. "Only I don't want to." "Your money!" exclaimed Madame d'Ambre.
It was quite certain that what Madame d'Ambre considered as owing to her would be paid. Prince Vanno saw the four leaving the Casino together, Mary and Carleton walking behind the other two. He had met both the Englishman and the American in Egypt once or twice, and had not thought of them since. Now he would forget neither. The story about Hannaford and his retirement from the army, Vanno knew.
The whole conversation had been in French from the first, as Madame d'Ambre knew little English; and Mary's accent was so perfect that to an American or English ear it passed as Parisian. Neither Hannaford, Schuyler, nor Carleton supposed that she had just arrived from England, though her name if they had caught it correctly was English or Scotch.
Madame d'Ambre shrugged her thin shoulders, seeing her own profits diminished. But, a woman of the world, she knew when it was useless to protest. And perhaps this wild amateur was indeed inspired. "There are seven ways in which to back your number for one spin," she said, carried away a little by Mary's spirit. "En plein that is, full on the number as before;
As Mary was piloted outside the crowd by Madame d'Ambre, four young women separated themselves hastily from the group round the table, and bore down upon the pair. They were young, or else clinging desperately to the ragged edges of their youth, and all four were dressed in clothes which had been beautiful.
"Shall I put something for you on twenty-four?" hastily asked Madame d'Ambre. "But it has just come." "It may come again. Often a number repeats. Shall I or not? An instant, and it will be too late." With her heart in her throat, Mary handed the Frenchwoman a hundred-franc note crushed in a ball. Madame d'Ambre asked a croupier near where she stood to stake the money. He did so, just in time.
But I'll be delighted to go over and sit with you till he comes." He had the pleasant drawl of a Southerner. "Oh, you're very, very kind," stammered Mary. "But I" she hesitated, and glanced appealingly at Madame d'Ambre "I think it's rather late, and I shall have to go home." "Home?" echoed Hannaford, questioningly. "My hotel," she explained.
"But all your money will soon be gone at this rate. A louis would bring you thirty-five " "No, no, the maximum!" Madame d'Ambre, aided by her croupier-neighbour, obeyed. A strange golden haze floated before Mary's eyes. She could not see through it.
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