One section of the garden ran straight and long, like a gayly patterned carpet, toward a middle background of climbing houses with red roofs; and it began to spread almost from the steps of the cream white building with jewelled and gilded horns, which Mary had seen in Peter's Riviera snapshots: the Casino. As the omnibus swung round a generous half circle, slowly now to avoid loitering groups of people, Mary saw many men and women arriving in motors or on foot, to go up the shallow flight of carpeted marble steps which led into the horned building. She thought again of an immense animal face under these erect, glittering horns; a face with quantities of intelligent, bright glass eyes that watched, and a wide-open, smiling mouth into which the figures walked confidently. It looked a kind, friendly animal basking in the gardens, and the big clock above its forehead, round which pigeons wheeled, added to its air of comfortable good nature. Mary was suddenly smitten with a keen curiosity to see exactly what all these people would see who allowed themselves to be swallowed by the mouth which smiled in receiving them. Most of the women were smartly dressed and had gold or embroidered bags in their hands, like those she had seen at Nice station. They went in looking straight ahead, and men ran up the steps quickly. Surely this was more than a mere building. There was something alive and vital and mysteriously attractive about it, though it was not beautiful at all architecturally, only rich looking and extraordinary, with its bronze youths sitting on the cornice and plaster figures starting out of the walls, laughing and beckoning. It had a personality which subtly contrived to dominate and make everything else in the little fairyland of flowers subservient to it, almost as if the emotions and passions of thousands and tens of thousands of souls from all over the world had saturated the materials of its construction.

As this fancy came to Mary's mind, the sun in its last look over the gray Tete de Chien struck her full in the eyes as with a flung golden gauntlet, then dropped behind the mountain, setting the sky on fire. An unreal light illumined the buildings in the fairy gardens, and Mary became conscious of an invisible tide of burning life all around her which caught her in its rushing flood. She was impelled to float on a swift and shining stream which she knew was carrying many others besides herself in the same direction toward an unseen but definite end. She was like a leaf snatched from a quiet corner by the wind and forced to join the whirl of its fellow-dancers. It was a feeling that warmed her veins with excitement, and made her reckless.

The omnibus passed the Casino, and a little farther on stopped in front of the Hotel de Paris. It too was fantastically ornate, surely the most extraordinary hotel on earth, with a high roof of a gray severity which ironically frowned down upon gilded balconies and nude plaster women who supported them, robustly voluptuous creatures who faded into foliage below the waist, like plump nymphs escaping the rude pursuit of gods. Their bareness and boldness startled the convent-bred girl, even horrified her. She was the last to leave the omnibus, and then, instead of pushing in with her fellow-passengers to secure a room before others could snap up everything, she lingered a moment on the steps.

Still that magical light illumined the Place, under the sky's rosy fire. The long glass facade of the restaurant sent out diamond flashes. The pigeons strutting in the open space in front of the Casino were jewels moving on sticks of coral. As they walked, tiny purple shadows followed them, as if their little red legs were tangled in pansies. Across the Place, on the other side of the garden and opposite the hotel, was an absurd yet gay collection of bubbly Moorish domes, and open or glassed-in galleries, evidently a cafe. Music was playing there, and in front of the balconies were many chairs and little tables where people drank tea and fed the strutting pigeons. Beyond the bubbly domes shimmered a panorama of beauty which by force of its magnificence redeemed the frivolous fairyland from vulgarity, rather than rebuked it. Under the rain of rose and gold, as if seen through opaline gauze, shone sea and hills and distant mountains. On a green height a ruined castle and its vassal rock-village seemed to have fallen from the top and been arrested by some miracle halfway down. Beneath, a peninsula of pines silvered with olives floated on a sea of burnished gold; and above soared mountains that went billowing away to the east and to Italy, deep purple-red in the wine of sunset.

Mary forgot that people do not come to hotels for the sole purpose of standing on the steps to admire a view. It was a liveried servant who politely reminded her of her duty by holding the glass door open and murmuring a suggestion that Mademoiselle should give herself the pain of entering. Then, slightly dazed by new impressions and the magnitude of her independence, Mary walked humbly into an immense hall, marble paved and marble columned. She had never seen anything half so gorgeous, and though she did not know yet whether she liked or disliked the bewildering decorations of mermaids and sea animals and flowers, she was struck by their magnificent audacity into a sense of her own insignificance. Before she could dare to walk here as by right, or seat herself in one of those great gilded and brocaded chairs, she must buy clothes which suited Monte Carlo as all this florid splendour of ornamentation suited it. She did not put this in words, but like all women possessed of "temperament," had in her something of the chameleon, and instinctively wished to match her tints with her environment.

Suddenly she recalled a solemn warning from Mrs. Home-Davis that some hotels refused to receive women travelling alone, and her heart was inclined to fail as she asked for a room. But fortunately this was not one of those cruel hotels Aunt Sara had heard about. Mary was received civilly and without surprise. A view of the sea? Certainly Mademoiselle could have a room with a view of the sea. It would be at the price of from thirty to fifty francs a day. Mary said that she would like to see a room for thirty francs, and felt economical and virtuous as she did so. She had been brought up to consider economy a good thing in the abstract, but she knew practically nothing of the value of money, as she had never bought anything for herself until she went to London. It seemed to her now that, with fifty thousand pounds, she was so rich that she could have anything she wanted in the world, but she had nebulous ideas as to what to want.

A pretty little pink and gray room was shown her, so pretty that it seemed cheap until she heard that food and everything else was "extra"; but the view decided her to take it. The large window looked southwest, with the harbour and rock of Monaco to the right, and to the left an exquisite group of palms on the Casino terrace, which gave an almost mysterious value to a background of violet sky melting into deeper violet sea. As she stood looking out, silver voices of bells chimed melodiously across the water, from the great Byzantine cathedral on the Rock. It was all beautiful and poetic. Mary would have taken the room if it had been a hundred instead of a paltry thirty francs a day. But she could not afford to stop and look at the violet sea, still haunted by the red wreckage of sunset. She had her shopping to do, for she must somehow find exactly the right hat and dress, ready to put on, or she would have to dine in her room, and that would be imprisonment on the first night at Monte Carlo.

She ran quickly downstairs again, not in the least tired after her journey, and changed a thousand-franc note, which perhaps inspired official confidence in the young English lady with only a hand-bag for luggage. Also, she inquired where she could buy the prettiest things to wear, and was directed to the Galerie Charles Trois, which turned out to be that covered gallery with shops and restaurants that she had noticed when driving up the hill.

By this time, though it was not yet dark, lights gleamed everywhere like great diamonds scintillating among the palms, or stars shining on the hills. The grass and trees and flowers in the Place of the Casino looked twice as unreal as before, all theatrically vivid in colour, and extraordinarily flat, as if cut out of painted cardboard against a background of gauze.

The ruined castle and old rock-town tumbling down the far-off hillside still smouldered in after-sunset fire, windows glittering like the rubies in some lost crown, dropped by a forgotten king in battle. But the red of the sky was paling to hyacinth, a strange and lovely tint that was neither rose nor blue. As Mary went to buy herself pretty things, walking through a scene of beauty beyond her convent dreams, she murmured a small prayer of thanksgiving that she had been guided to this heavenly place.

She must write to Reverend Mother and Peter, she thought, explaining why she was here, and how glad she was that she had happened to come. Then it struck her suddenly, though more humorously than disagreeably, that it would be rather difficult to explain, especially in a way to satisfy Peter. Perhaps dear Reverend Mother would be anxious for her safety, if Peter said any of those rather silly things of Monte Carlo which at the last she had said to her—Mary. After all, maybe it would be better to keep to the first plan and not write until she could date a letter Florence. Then she put the little worry out of her mind and gave her soul to the shop-windows in the Galerie Charles Trois.

It was a fascinating gallery, where lovely ladies walked, wonderfully dressed, pointing out dazzling jewellery in plate glass windows, to slightly bored men who were with them. Nearly everybody who passed sent out wafts of peculiarly luscious perfume. Mary walked the length of the gallery, so as to see all the shops there were to see, before deciding upon anything. She passed brilliantly lighted restaurants where people were having tea, some of them at little tables out of doors, protected by glass screens; and as she walked, people stared at her a good deal, especially the men who were with the lovely ladies; and the bored look went out of their eyes. Mary noticed that she was stared at, and was uncomfortable, because she imagined that her gray tweed and travelling hat drew unfavourable attention.

But she intended to change all this. She would soon be as well dressed as anybody, and no one would stare any more. In one window there were displayed, not only gowns, but hats and cloaks, and exquisite furs, all shown on wax models with fashionably dressed hair and coquettish faces. One pink and white creature with a startlingly perfect figure wore a filmy robe of that intense indigo just taken on by the sea. Underneath a shadowlike tunic of dark blue chiffon there was a glint of pale gold, a sort of gold and silver sheath which encased the form of the waxen lady.

"My hair is that colour," Mary thought, and imagined herself in the dress. The next thing was to walk in and ask a very agreeable Frenchwoman if the gown were likely to fit her without alteration. "I must have something at once," Mary explained. "My luggage has gone to Italy."

The agreeable Frenchwoman was sympathetic. But yes, the dress would fit to perfection, not a doubt of it, for Mademoiselle had the ideal figure for model robes. And if, unfortunately, the trunks had all gone, Mademoiselle would want not only one dress but several? And hats? Yes, naturally. Other things also, of the same importance. The house made a speciality of trousseaux. Had Mademoiselle but the time to look? She need not buy anything, or fear giving trouble. Then Madame added a few compliments against which Mary, unaccustomed to such food, was not proof.

She bought the blue chiffon over pale gold, which was hastily tried on behind a gilded screen; and the wax lady was robbed of gold embroidered stockings and golden shoes to match. There was a hat of dark blue with a crown of silver-threaded golden gauze, which was indispensable with the dress. To wear over this a long cloak of white satin with a wide collar of swansdown, was the dernier cri of Paris, Madame assured her customer. There were other dresses and hats too, for morning and afternoon, and even more extravagant dessous than those Jennings had tabooed in London.

After the first, Mary forgot to ask prices. She was lost in a delirium of buying, and ordered whatever she liked, until her brain was tired.

She then thanked Madame charmingly for her politeness and asked to have the things sent home at once.

But yes, they should go on the moment. And would Mademoiselle pay now, or at her hotel?

Mary laughed at herself, because she had forgotten about paying. It might as well be now, as she wished to go farther and get some gloves. Deftly Madame made out the account. It came to three thousand eight hundred and ninety francs.

When Mary had mentally turned francs into pounds she was a little startled; but luckily, against her aunt's advice, she had come away with a good deal of ready money, English, French, and Italian. It took nearly all she had to settle the bill, but, as Madame remarked gayly, Mademoiselle had left herself enough for an evening game at the Casino. This was, of course, true, as more could somehow be obtained to-morrow. For the moment Mary had forgotten her curiosity about the pleasant, basking animal in the garden, but she decided that, after dinner—which she must have soon, as she was already beginning to be hungry—she would walk into the monster's smiling mouth.



VI

Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, known to his friends in Rome as Vanno, went down early to dinner at the Paris. This, not because he was hungry, but having come to the hotel because he knew that his Juliet of Marseilles was there, he had no intention of missing a chance to look at her. If she did not appear early, he would go on dining until it was late, no matter how late.

Such a resolution, and just such an adventure as this into which he had flung himself with characteristic impulsiveness and passion, were strange for Prince Vanno, because since a first unhappy love, when he was a mere boy, he had avoided women. Adventure and romance were in his blood, the Italian blood of his father, the Irish-American blood of his beautiful mother. But his adventures had not been love adventures, since that first agony had driven him for comfort to the silence of the desert. Since then he had gone back to the desert for desire of great empty spaces, and the fire of eastern stars, needing comfort no longer for a lost love. That had passed out of his heart years ago, leaving no scar of which he was conscious.

He had just come back from the desert now, and an Arab astrologer who was a friend of his had told him that December of this year would be for him a month of good luck and great happenings, the star of his birth being in the ascendant. Almost it began to look as if there might be something in the prophecy; and Prince Vanno, laughing at himself (with the dry sense of humour that came from the Irish-American side of his parentage), was half inclined to be superstitious. Astronomy was his love at present, not astrology, and last year he had discovered a small blue planet which had been named after him and whose sapphire beauty had been much admired. Still, because he had always had a passion for the stars, and went to the east to see them at their brightest, he was tolerant of those who believed in their influence upon earth-dwellers; therefore he was ready to yield with confident ardour to sudden impulses in this the month of his star. Mary Grant's eyes had looked to him like stars, and he had followed them. Already he had had one stroke of luck in the adventure, for he had been bound to Monte Carlo from Marseilles, before he saw her, not to try his fortune at the tables, but to meet his elder brother and sister-in-law who were to finish their honeymoon close by, at Cap Martin, and to stay for an aviation week at Nice, when an invention of his would be tried for the first time. But if Mary had gone on beyond Monte Carlo, he too would have gone on. Having plunged into the adventure, for a pair of eyes, he was prepared to pursue it to the end wherever the end might be, even if he missed the flying week and broke an engagement with the bride and bridegroom. But it was luck that she should be getting out at the place where he had meant to stop for his own reasons.

He supposed, of course, that she was travelling with relatives or friends. Although he had seen her mounting the steps of a wagon lit apparently alone, this did not argue that some one who belonged to her was not inside. And when, from the window of the train whence he leaned at every station, he saw her again at Monte Carlo, she was surrounded by a crowd. One of the ladies shoulder to shoulder with her might be a mother or aunt, one of the men a father or uncle; and it had been the same when he followed, just in time to see her get into the Hotel de Paris omnibus. Already the vehicle was full. She was the last in. His idea was that, being the youngest of her party, she had waited for them to be placed before taking a seat herself.

He knew of her now, having examined the visitors' book at the Paris, that she was "Miss M. Grant"; that the name was written in a very pretty, rather old-fashioned hand; that after it came "London" in the same writing. He was sure the name must be hers, because it was last on the page before he wrote his own; and she had gone in last, after everybody else, leaving the people she was with to do their name-signing before her. Also, the other women on the page were all "Madame" or "Frau" or "Mrs." He was rather surprised, somehow, to learn that she was English. In spite of her unusually fair hair he had fancied that she would turn out to be French, her type was so spirituelle, yet so suggestive of "temperament."

If he had not been following a pair of eyes, Prince Vanno would have gone to a quiet hotel in the Condamine, to be near the aviation ground, for, being utterly unsnobbish, like all Italians of great families, he rather disliked "smart" crowds, rich food, and gorgeous decorations. But the only way not to lose the stars he followed was to keep near them. He would not for a great deal have questioned the hotel people about "Miss M. Grant," otherwise he might have learned for how long a time her room was engaged, and, incidentally, that she was alone. But as it was, he had to find out things for himself, and to do this must be in the same hotel.

It was only seven o'clock when he came down from his little room at the top of the house, not nearly as expensive as Mary's, and stopped at the foot of the marble stairs, which he liked better than the lift, to look round the big hall. There was no great crowd, for most people who had come in from the Casino were dressing for dinner, and Prince Vanno saw at a glance that Miss M. Grant was not there. He went on slowly through the Louis Seize tea-room, to the gorgeous restaurant with its domed and gilded ceiling, its immense wall paintings, and glass front.

At one of these window tables—a very small one—sat a lovely creature, alone. A good many heads were turning to look at her, so probably she had not long ago arrived. For an instant Vanno's eyes were fixed upon the glittering figure, and the bowed face shadowed by an eccentric hat, without recognizing it. But it was only for an instant. Then, with a shock of surprise which was almost horror, he realized that this lovely, low-necked bird of Paradise creature was the same gentle girl he had followed.

"Dio!" he said to himself, and bit his lip. He felt the blood rush up to his face, as if some one had given him an insulting blow, which he could not avenge because his hands were tied.

There were two or three other young and beautiful women alone, dressed with equal extravagance, their gowns as low, their hats as big; only she, his Juliet, was more beautiful than any. That was the difference between them. But was it the only difference? The young man, whose eyes still reflected the golden light of vast desert spaces, asked himself the question with a sick sinking of the heart. He had followed an angel, and found her—what? Because about those two or three others there was no question at all. And why was she here alone, dressed like them, if—but he would not finish the sentence in his mind. He resolved to study the girl, and give her the full benefit of the doubt, so long as there was a ray of hope.

Vanno had not gone so far as to fall in love at first sight; yet coming back from the desert with his heart open to beauty and romance, he had been willing to let himself go to the brink, or over it, if it were worth while, else he would not have followed Juliet's eyes. But he wished to have nothing to do with the white angel if she were a fallen angel. Such a one would be easy to know, to walk with and talk with, whereas he might have found it difficult to make the acquaintance of a conventionally brought up girl. Some men might have been glad to find the heroine of a romantic adventure dining alone at a fashionable hotel at Monte Carlo, in a sheath-like, low-cut dress and a hat of to-morrow's fashion. But Prince Vanno Della Robbia was sick at heart, and dazed as by a blow.

His father, Duca di Rienzi, had a strain of stern asceticism in his nature, and even the impulsive, warm-hearted American mother could not wholly redeem from gloom the cold palace in Rome and the dark fourteenth century castle at Monte Della Robbia. Each of these natures had given something to Vanno, and the differences were so strongly marked that his elder brother had said, "to know Vanno was like knowing two men of entirely opposite characters, each struggling for mastery over the other." But even in his asceticism he was ardent. Whatever he did, he did with passion and fervour, which he could laugh at as if from a distance sometimes, but could not change. And his ideas of the right life for women were not unlike the ideas of eastern men. Women should be guarded, kept apart from all that was evil or even unpleasant. So the lovely American mother had been guarded, somewhat against her will, by the Duke, and she had died while she was still young. She had never talked to Vanno of women's life and girls' life in her own country, for she had gone to the unseen land while he was still a boy. If she had stayed, perhaps he would not have had to go to the desert for comfort, when he at twenty loved a woman of twenty-eight, who flirted with him until he was half mad, and then married an American millionaire.

The table nearest Mary was not engaged, for it was too early in the evening for a crowd in the Paris restaurant. Vanno signified to a waiter his desire for this table, and was taken to it. He sat down facing Mary, and pretended to study the menu. He hardly knew what he ordered. A waiter was bringing the girl a small bottle of champagne, in an ice-pail. The man cut the wires, and extracted the cork neatly, but with a slight popping sound. Mary started a little, and glancing up at the waiter smiled at him gayly, with a dimple in each cheek. Her big hat was placed jauntily on one side, and the deep blue velvet brim, with the gauzy gold of the soft crown, was extremely striking on the silver-gold waves of her hair. In her wonderful dress, which showed a good deal of white neck, she looked so fashionably sophisticated that Vanno feared the start she gave at the popping of the cork might be affected. He gazed across at her with mingled disapproval and admiration which gave singular intensity to his deep-set, romantic eyes as Mary met them.

She was in a mood to be delighted with everything that happened, and it seemed a charming happening that the handsome young man from Marseilles should have chanced to come to this hotel. It did not occur to her that his coming might not be an accident, and she was pleased to see him again.

Her bringing up, in all that concerned her treatment of men, had been neglected; rather, it had not been given at all. As a schoolgirl she had never met any men except a few mild youths when visiting Lady MacMillan, and then she had never seen them alone. She had thought herself a child, and had behaved as a child, in those days. Then had come her years as a postulant and as a novice. Men had ceased to exist as influences in her life. It had not been necessary to teach her what to do when in their society, for it had seemed improbable that she ever would be. When, at the last moment, she had decided that after all she "had not the vocation," there had been little or no time to prepare her for the world. And she had come out of the convent with no social wisdom except the wisdom of kindness and courtesy to all fellow-beings.

Man was decidedly a fellow-being, and Mary, to whom he was interesting because entirely new, was inclined to be very kind to him, especially when he had the handsome, almost tragic dark face of a Romeo or a young Dante, and eyes like wells of ink into which diamonds had fallen.

She was feeling childishly pleased with herself in her new dress, for she loved beautiful things, and knew next to nothing of suitability, provided the colours were right. By day, one had blouses and skirts, and high-necked frocks. At night, if one were in the world, one wore low gowns. She had learned this from Peter and other girls at school, and also from Lady MacMillan. When there were entertainments at the convent for the pupils, as there were several times each year, the girls put on their prettiest clothes. They had low-necked gowns for the dances, at which their partners were, of course, invariably girls, and they said that, when they "came out," they would have their dresses cut lower and made more fashionably. Of this, the sisters quite approved for their girls, whom they trusted never to do, never to wear, anything immodest. At Lady MacMillan's, Mary had worn simple evening dress, before she resolved to become a nun; and in London even Aunt Sara and Elinor, with their thin necks, had considered it necessary to display more than their collarbones each night at dinner.

Mary, having little money in her schoolgirl days, had never owned anything very pretty, and now she thought it right and pleasant to make up for lost time. The "Madame" of the shop in the Galerie Charles Trois had earnestly recommended this gown and this hat for dinner and the Casino; therefore Mary was sure that her costume must be as suitable as it was beautiful, and that she was quite "in the picture," in this magnificent room. She admired the lovely, perfumed ladies with wonderful complexions and clothes, at neighbouring tables, and was thankful that she looked not too unlike them. She hoped that she might become acquainted with at least one or two of the prettiest before long, because it must be pleasant to make friends in hotels with other people who were alone like one's self. Peter also had admired the lovely ladies with wonderful complexions and clothes who chose to live in the best hotels at Monte Carlo; but she admired them in a different way, with a kind of fearful fascination. And she had never talked of them to Mary. One did not talk to Sister Rose of such things.

Mary was glad that the Dante young man (she began to call him thus, for his profile really was like the poet's, and after all too stern for Romeo) could see her in this dress and hat, after having a sight of her first in the tweed, which she had now grown to detest. It really did seem as if he remembered, for he looked at her with a straight look, almost as if he were asking a grave, important question. She was afraid that he must be unhappy, for certainly his eyes were tragic, if they were not reproachful; and of course they couldn't be reproachful, as he didn't know her, and had nothing to be reproachful about.

The waiter who served her was a charming person, with delightful manners, almost like those of the Frenchman who had been kind to her on the way to Paris. He recommended things on the menu, which turned out to be exquisite. They were the most expensive, also, but Mary did not know that. It seemed quite odd that one should have to pay for food at all, for always it had appeared to come as a matter of course, like the air one breathed. When he advised her sympathetically to try a little champagne, refreshed with ice, she would have been grieved to hurt his feelings by refusing, even if she had not rather wanted to know what champagne was like. People in books drank it when they wished to be merry and enjoy themselves, and it made their eyes bright and their cheeks red. Mary had had the chance of reading very few novels, but she recalled this bit of useful knowledge concerning champagne.

She tasted it, and found it nice, deliciously cold and sparkling. No wonder it made the eyes bright! But after all, she could not drink much, though it seemed a shame to waste anything so good. "You can have the rest," she said to the waiter, when she had finished her first glass. He was surprised, for most ladies, he noticed, could finish two or three glasses, or even more.

Again the man with the profile of a young Dante was looking at her with the grave, anxious look that puzzled her. She met his eyes for the third or fourth time, and was so sorry for his apparent unhappiness where every one else seemed merry, that she half smiled, very sweetly and gently, as one would smile at a gloomy child.

The man did not return her kindness. An angry flash lit his eyes, and he looked extremely haughty and unapproachable, no longer a lonely figure needing sympathy, but a high personage. Mary lowered her lashes, abashed; and when she did this Vanno, who was on the point of hating her because she was not the white angel he had thought, doubted again, and was more bewildered than ever. Her friendly smile had been sweet, and he, who was here only because of her, had quenched its light! He regretted passionately his own ungraciousness, no matter what the girl might be. And she looked so young, her eyes so full of sea and heaven! On what errand had she come alone to this place? He determined that he would know, and soon.



VII

Mary ordered coffee in the hall, because something of her delight in the gay restaurant had been crushed out by Vanno's snub. She was no longer at peace under his eyes, and wished to avoid meeting them again, so it was pleasanter to go away. But even in the hall she could not forget him, as she had forgotten him after Marseilles. When he too came out from the restaurant, not long after, she saw him, though he was at a distance, saw him without even turning her eyes; and she thought how tall he was, and how much a man, although slender to the point of leanness. He sat on a sofa in the hall, and ordered coffee. Mary knew, though she did not look at him again, and interested herself instead in other people.

All those who came from dinner, except the Prince, drank their coffee and went out. Some went by the front door, taking the direction of the Casino. Others disappeared into an unknown part of the hotel; and so many chose this way, that Mary inquired of a passing waiter where they were all going. "To the Casino, Mademoiselle, by the underground passage, to avoid the night air," the servant answered.

To the Casino. Everybody was going to the Casino. It was time that Mary should go to the Casino, too. She had brought down her new white cloak with the swansdown collar, and asked a liveried man to put it aside for her while she dined. Now she claimed it again, and having no fear of the "night air," walked out into the azure flood which had overflowed the fantastic fairyland like deep, blue water. The gardens lay drowned in this translucent, magic sea, and the coolness of the sunset hour had been mysteriously followed by a balmy warmth, like the temperature of a summer night in England.

There were as many people in the Place as there had been in the afternoon, and all those who were not sitting on garden seats looking at the Casino were walking toward the Casino, or just coming out of the Casino. The eyes of the big, horned animal were blazing with light, and glared in the blue dusk with the hard, bright stare of the gold eyes in a peacock's tail. Windows of the Riviera Palace on the hill above were like orange-coloured lanterns hung against an indigo curtain; and in the Place itself bunches of vivid yellow lights, in globes like illuminated fruit set on tall lamp posts, lit the foreground of the strange picture with unnatural brilliance. Grass and trees were a vivid, arsenical green, almost vicious yet beautiful, and the flowers gleamed like resting butterflies. The summer warmth of the air had a curiously tonic and exciting quality. It seemed to have gathered into its breath the sea's salt, the luscious sweetness of heavy white datura bells dangling among dark leaves in the gardens, an aromatic tang of pepper trees and eucalyptus, and a vague, haunting perfume of women's hair and laces. These mingling odours, suggested to the senses rather than apprehended by them, mounted to Mary's brain, and set her heartstrings quivering with unknown emotions sweet as pleasure and keen as pain.

As she went slowly down the hotel steps to walk across the Place her eyes held a new expression. When she had first told herself that she could not stay at the convent, they had asked, looking toward the world, "What is life?" Now they said, "I have begun to live, and I will go on, on, no matter where, because I must know what life means."

Her cheeks were burning still from the first champagne she had ever tasted, and the sweet air cooled them pleasantly. Seeing a number of people on benches opposite the Casino, she decided to sit down for a few minutes before going in. None of these benches was empty, but one was unoccupied save for a young man and a girl, who sat at one end. Mary rather timidly took the other corner, but the couple, after giving her a long stare, returned to their conversation as if she were no more than a shadow.

"This is the last, last straw!" the man grumbled, in English. "I thought there was one missing."

"They never forget to add it to the rest," said the girl.

"Not they," he echoed. "And I wasn't doing so badly at one time. I've a mind to apply for the viatique."

"I shouldn't have the courage."

"Oh, I should. I'd like to get something out of them. I hate the Riviera, anyhow. There's too much scenery all over the place. No rest for the eye."

"But supposing you change your mind, and want come back and try your luck? You couldn't, if you'd taken the viatique."

"Yes I could—when I'd paid it back. It's supposed to be a loan, you know, which you have to repay before you're allowed to play again."

"Oh, I didn't know!"

A group of young men walked past, laughing. "Never saw such a run of luck," said one. "Seventeen on red and I was on it from the first. Glorious place, Monte! Let's drink its health!"

They turned, stared with interest at Mary, and passed on, lowering their voices. She caught the words "something new," but there was no sense in them for her ears. She saw the Dauntreys hurrying to the Casino, with Mrs. Collis and her daughter, and Dodo Wardropp. Two men were with them, both young, and one rather distinguished looking. All were too deeply absorbed in themselves and each other to notice her. The ladies were charmingly dressed, and so were most of the women who passed, all going quickly like the figures of a cinematograph; but some were of the strangest possible types. Mary said to herself that they must be infinitely more interesting in their own secret selves than lookers on could ever know. The hidden realities in all these passionately egotistic selves came to her as she sat watching, in attractive or repellent flashes of light. Then she lost the secret again, and they became mere puppets in a moving show. The only real thing was the Casino, and she began to study the large bright face of it.

Although Mary had never travelled till now, she knew something of architecture from beautiful pictures of ancient Greece and Rome, and Egypt, and of the world's noblest cathedrals, which decorated the schoolroom walls at St. Ursula's-of-the-Lake. This building, it seemed to her, was of no recognized type of architecture. It was neither classic nor Gothic: not Renaissance, Egyptian, nor Moorish. It gave the impression of being a mere fantastic creation of a gay and irresponsible brain. If a confectioner accustomed to work in coloured sugars were to dream of a superlative masterpiece, his exalted fancy might take some such shape as this.

The irregular, cream-coloured facade was broken up into many separate parts by pillars and frenzied ornaments of plaster, and there had been addition after addition, stretching away long and low to the left. A row of large windows, discreetly veiled so that no shadows could be cast from within, glowed with warm yellow light. Their refusal to betray any hint of what passed on the other side suggested a hidden crowd busy with some exciting, secret pleasure. Along the cornice of the newer portions at the left of the original Casino were perched bronze youths with golden wings, their hands holding aloft bunches of golden flowers. Two towers meretriciously mosaiced with coloured tiles balanced the centre of the higher and middle building, and a portico of iron and glass, ornate yet banal as the architecture of a railway station, protected the carpeted steps and the three large doors which were grouped closely together, doors through which people constantly passed in and out like bees at the entrance to a hive. In the pensive sweetness of the semi-tropical night, this fantastic erection in plaster and gilding and coloured ornaments seemed an outrage, a taunt, a purposeful affront; and yet—the very violence of the contrast, its outrageousness, gave it a kind of obsessing charm.

Unseen from where Mary sat, the Mediterranean sighed upon its ancient rocks. A faint breath of the mysteriously perfumed air stirred the exotic palms over her head and made their fronds rub against each other gratingly, as if some secret signal were being carried on from one to another. Turning to right, to left, or to look behind her, dimly seen mountains soared toward a sky that deepened from asphodel to the dark indigo of a star-powdered zenith. Eastward in the distance ran a linked chain of lights along the high road that led to Italy; and a bright cluster like a knot of fireflies, pulsing on the breast of a mountain, marked the old hill-village of Roquebrune. Kindly enveloping nature was so sane and wholesome in her vast wisdom and stillness that the sugar-cake Casino and all its attendant artificialities struck into the brooding peace a shrill note of challenging incongruity. The little sparkling patch of light and colour that was Monte Carlo proclaimed that it was there for some extraordinary and powerful purpose, that its bizarre beauty was dedicated to exceptional uses; and it occurred to Mary that the temple of Chance must after all diverge from every rule of architecture in order to stamp its meaning on the mind. The feverish decorations began to express to her the fever of gambling, and even to create a desire for it. She felt this longing grow more insistent, like strains of exciting music that swelled louder and louder; and suddenly in the midst she seemed to hear Peter's voice saying, "What if it should be true, the thing your father was afraid of?"

What if it were true? How could she tell? In his last terrible letter he had reminded her that she had wild blood in her veins, and told her to "be careful."

She had thought when hearing Peter's descriptions of the Riviera that the gambling part of life there would interest her least of all, but already she was under the spell of the Casino. It drew her toward it, as if Fate sat hiding behind the veiled bright windows, just as Monte Carlo had called irresistibly, forcing her to get out of the train when she had meant to go on. She began to doubt her own nature, her own courage and strength of will. She thought of what was passing on the other side of the cream-white walls as if it were a battle into which she was compelled to plunge, and she imagined that thus a young soldier might feel in a first engagement—tremulous, and almost sick with anxiety which was not quite fear.

Her heart beating fast, she jumped up, and crossing the road resolutely mounted the steps which were guarded by tall, fine men in blue livery. Inside the doors which she had watched so long she found herself entering an outer lobby. Beyond was another, also kept by liveried men. A room led off this, and Mary could see people leaving their wraps with attendants who stood behind counters. She parted with her cloak, and was given a metal disc bearing a number. Near by, a French couple, who looked like bride and groom, were examining their discs, and telling each other that it would be tempting Providence not to stake money on such numbers as onze and dix-sept. At this, Mary glanced again at her bit of metal. Its number was 124. She remembered hearing from Peter that in the game of roulette it was a favourite "tip" to bet on the number representing your age. Peter spurned the idea as silly and childish; but Mary thought it might do to begin with, as she knew nothing better. Her age being twenty-four, she decided to adopt the French bride's suggestion, and bet on the last two numbers cut into her cloak-ticket.

Beyond the second lobby, she passed into a vast pillared hall, where men and women, not all in evening dress, were strolling up and down, smoking and chatting, or sitting on leather-covered benches, to stare aimlessly at the promenaders, as if they were tired, or waiting for something to happen.

This hall puzzled Mary, for she had imagined that beyond the two lobbies she would pass directly into the gambling-rooms. Here were no tables such as Peter had described; and the fact that she must go still farther seemed to increase the mystery or secrecy of the place. Mary hesitated, not knowing which way to turn, for there were several doors under the high galleries that ran the whole length of the hall. This must be the atrium, where, Peter had said, the "guests of Hercules" were accustomed to make rendezvous. It was cool and classic, a hall for reflection rather than excitement, as if it were intended for those who wished to plan a new way of playing, or to rest in, between games.

Suddenly a man in livery with a peaked cap threw open a door at the back and past the middle of the hall. From it instantly began to pour a stream of people in evening dress, and as they separated themselves from the tide, they divided into knots of twos and fours.

"Perhaps they gamble in groups, or batches," Mary thought, and her heart sank lest she, being alone, might not be allowed to play. She could not recall anything said by Peter about this; but she went timidly to the door, and asked the man in livery if this were the way "into the Casino."

"It is the way into the theatre," he informed her. "The first act of the opera is just over. Mademoiselle is a stranger then? Those people will go to the roulette and trente et quarante rooms to amuse themselves for half an hour till the beginning of the next act."

"It is the roulette I want, not the opera," Mary heard herself say, as if some one else were speaking.

"Ah, Mademoiselle has her ticket of admission?"

She showed him her vestiaire ticket, and the servant of the Casino was too polite to smile, as he explained that something else was necessary before she would be allowed to enter the gambling-rooms. He pointed toward three swing-doors at the far end of the hall, to the left. Through two of these, people were going into a room beyond. Through the middle one they were coming out into the atrium; and as the big doors swung rapidly back and forth there were glimpses on the other side of a vast space full of rich yellow light.

"Those messieurs stationed there would stop Mademoiselle, seeing she was a stranger, and demand her ticket. It is better that she return to the bureau, a room opposite the vestiaire where she has left her cloak."

This was an anticlimax, after summoning courage for the plunge into battle; but Mary returned whence she had come, to take her place behind others who waited for tickets of admission. She listened intently to what passed, so that she might know what to do; but it was disconcerting when her turn came, to be asked for a visiting-card. The lately emancipated Sister Rose possessed no such thing, and expected to be sent away defeated. Yet a path out of the difficulty was quickly found by the alert, frock-coated, black-necktied official behind the long desk. This charming young woman, beautifully and expensively dressed, was not one who deserved to be discouraged from entering the Casino. All she need do was to give her full name and nationality, also her place of residence. Gladly she obeyed; and holding in her hand a carte du jour on which she had written her own name, at last she had the right of entrance.

There was still one more mistake to make, however, and she promptly made it, attempting to pass through the right-hand swing-door. But no! It was for season-ticket holders. She must go to the left. The middle door was for those coming out. A fat man, hurrying brusquely in before her, let the swing-door slam in her face. "Le joueur n'a ni politesse, ni sexe," was a proverb of the "Rooms" which Mary Grant had never heard, but would come to understand.

She was on the threshold of an enormous room, magnificently proportioned, hung with lustrous chandeliers, and divided by an archway into two sections. The farther part was much larger than that which she had entered, and more sumptuous in decoration; but the whole was flooded with a peculiar radiance which turned everything to gold. It was far mellower than the light of the atrium, or the splendid rooms of the hotel. It had actual colour like honey, or the pinky-golden skin of apricots. It was bright, yet the impression it made on the mind was of softness rather than brilliance; and the shining atmosphere of the room, instead of being clear, seemed charged with infinitesimal particles of floating gold, like motes in rays of sunshine. The tables, under darkly shaded, low-hanging lamps, gave the effect of sending a yellow smoke, like incense, up to the height of the great dazzling chandeliers. It was almost as if the hands of players in fingering gold pieces day after day, year after year for generations, had rubbed off minute flakes which hung like a golden haze in the air.

It appeared to Mary's eyes, taking in the whole and not dwelling upon details, that everything in the farther part of the vast domed room was of gold: different shades of gold; dark, old gold, the richer for being tarnished: bright, glittering, guinea gold: greenish gold, and gold of copper red.

No other colour could have been as appropriate here.

The air was not offensively dead, but it was langorously asleep. Many different perfumes haunted and weighed it down; but there was some underlying, distinctive odour which excited the nerves mysteriously, and sent the blood racing through the veins.

"It is the smell of money," Mary said to herself.

Just inside the entrance doors, on either side, was a large table round which people sat or stood. Those standing behind the chairs of the seated ones were at least two rows deep, crowded tightly together. Beyond were many other tables, thronged even more densely; and ringed thus with closely packed figures, they were like islands on a shining golden sea, an archipelago of little islands, all of exactly the same size, and placed at equal distances.

Mary, hardly knowing what to expect from Peter's rather vague and disjointed descriptions, had dimly fancied clamour and confusion bursting upon eyes and ears on the instant of entering the gambling-rooms. But the silence of the place was as haunting and mystery-suggesting as the indefinable odour, and more thrilling to the imagination than the loudest noise.

She who had been Sister Rose was horrified to find herself thinking of a cathedral lighted for a midnight mass. Almost, she expected organ music to peal out.

Slowly she moved down the room, past the first tables, and, as she walked, the muffled, characteristic sounds she began to hear seemed but to punctuate and emphasize the silence, like echoes in a cave: a faint rattle of rakes, like the rustle of leaves, and a delicate chink-chink of gold, like the chirping of young birds just awakened by dawn.

A voice at each table as she drew near or passed made some announcement. She caught the words distinctly yet not loudly pronounced: "Faites vos jeux, messieurs.... Rien n'va plus. Onze, noir, impair et manque."

"Onze" was one of the numbers the French couple had decided to play. Mary wondered if it had come at their bidding, and she wished intensely to see what was going on at the tables inside those close circles of women's hats and men's shoulders. But to see, meant to push. She was not bold enough to do that, and kept moving on observantly, hoping always to discover some island less populous than others.

Now she began to pick individuals out of the crowd. The number of types seemed countless. It was as if each country on earth had been called upon to contribute as many as it could spare of unusual and striking, even astonishing, specimens of humanity, on purpose to provide eccentric or ornamental features of this strange, world's variety show.

There were some lovely, and a few singularly beautiful, women from northern and southern lands. Peter had said that one could "tell Americans by their chins," which were firmer and more expressive of energy than other chins, and Englishwomen by their straight noses, which looked as if they had been handed down as precious heirlooms from aristocratic ancestresses. The mellow light gilded many such chins and such noses, and shone into soft dark eyes such as only the Latin races have. Mary fancied she could tell French from Italian women, Spanish from Austrian, Hungarian from Russian or German types. Almost invariably the pretty women and the good-looking men were well dressed. Only the plain and ugly ones seemed not to care for appearances. But there were more plain people than handsome ones; and dowdy forms strove jealously to hide the charming figures, as dark clouds swallow up shining stars. All faces, however, no matter how beautiful or how repulsive, how old or how young, had a strange family likeness in their expression, it seemed to Mary; a tense eagerness, such as before her novitiate she had seen on the faces of Lady MacMillan's guests sometimes when they had settled down seriously to play bridge.

She had expected to see unhappy and wildly excited faces, because, Peter said, people often lost or won fortunes in these rooms in a single night; but no one in this moving crowd looked either very miserable or very radiant. They did not even appear to be greatly excited, yet most of them seemed absorbed, as if they listened for a sound which would mean something of vital importance; or else they had an air of fearing that they had missed the all-essential signal which might never come again.

It was not the "high season" yet, Mary's waiter at the Paris had said, and the "vrai monde" would not come in its greatest rush until after Christmas and the New Year; yet the Casino was filled with a throng of persons many of whom looked immensely rich and important, and none of whom, at worst, was shabby. Even those who were dowdy appeared well-to-do. Mary saw that it was not necessary to gamble in groups. Men and even women, all alone, pushed their way through the thick wall of hats and shoulders round the table, sometimes being lost altogether, or sometimes emerging again in three or four minutes to scurry across the shining expanse of floor to another table. By and by, when she began to feel calmer, Mary ventured near a table in the middle of the room, within full sight of doors which led to other rooms: a long vista straight ahead, where all the decorations seemed new and fresh, and a light white as silver streamed from hanging lamps like diamond pendants and necklaces for giantesses or goddesses of fortune. So different was the colour of this light from that of the first great salle, that a silver wall seemed built against a wall of gold.

Standing outside the circle at the table, new sounds in the silence struck Mary's ear, not emphasizing the heavy silence, as did the delicate chinking of coins and the announcements of roulette numbers, but jarring and ruffling its smooth surface: little sudden rustlings and squabblings, disputes between players in French or German, sharp and mean, yet insignificant as the quarrelling of a nestful of birds in the ample peace of a spreading beech tree.

Now and then there seemed a chance that Mary might find a place in the back row at a table, but some one else, also watching, invariably darted in ahead of her. Each time the hope came, her heart gave a bound, and the blood sang in her ears. She was astonished at her excitement, which seemed exaggerated beyond reason, and ridiculous, yet she could not conquer it; and the trembling that ran through her body made her knees feel very weak, after she had stood for perhaps half an hour. Looking round, she noticed that there were a good many brown leather-covered seats along the mirrored and gilded walls. Most of these were fully occupied by resting men and women, some very old and tired looking, others eagerly counting money, or jotting down notes in little books or on cards. As she looked, an extraordinary woman much bejewelled, with a face a century old under bright red hair, and a hat for a lovely young girl, jumped abruptly up from the seat nearest Mary, and almost ran to one of the tables, where she flung herself into the crowd, like a diver into a wave. Her place on the bench was left empty, and Mary took it, to follow the example of others and count her money while resting.

Sitting down, she had on one side a young and pretty woman in a charming dress and hat, more suitable for a past June than a present December, even a Riviera December. Her face, too, which she turned with a gaze of interest on Mary and her costume, was slightly, pathetically faded, like the petals of a white rose gathered while in bud and pressed between the pages of a book. She was like a charming wax doll which had lost its colour by being placed too near a warm fire.

On the other side was a very old man, gray as a ghost, who showed no sign of knowing that he had a new neighbour. Everything about him was gray: his thin, concave face, his expressionless eyes, his sparse hair and straggling moustache, his clothes, and his hands, knotted on the back like the roots of trees. His grayness and the bleak remoteness of his air made him seem unreal as a spirit come back to haunt the scene of long-ago triumphs or defeats. Mary could almost have persuaded herself that he did not exist, and that the pale form and glassy eyes were visible to her alone.

She took her purse from a bag of gold and silver beads she had bought in the Galerie Charles Trois, and counted her money. She had a little more than five hundred francs, and wondered what could be done with that sum at roulette. Even the sound of tinkling gold and silver did not attract the dead gray eyes to Mary; but perhaps it broke some dreary dream, for the old man got up stiffly as if in protest, and walked away with the gait of an automaton.

"Heaven be praised!" murmured in French the weary white rose on Mary's other side; "he brings bad luck. But perhaps he will take it away with him."

Mary realized that her neighbour was speaking to her, and turned with a smile of encouragement, thankful to find some one who looked kind, and would perhaps tell her things.

The pretty woman went on, without waiting to be answered: "He is like a galvanized corpse; and indeed, he may be one, for he ought to have died long ago. Have you ever heard his story?"

"No," Mary said. "I have only just come here."

"For the first time?" The other's face brightened oddly.

"Yes, it is my first time."

"And you are alone?"

"Quite alone."

"Poor little one! But that will not be for long."

"I don't know yet how long I shall stay."

"Oh! I did not mean quite that. But let it pass. Shall I tell you the story of the old man? It will interest you, if you don't know Monte Carlo. Nothing is too strange to happen here. It is only ordinary things which never happen in this place, Mademoiselle."

"I have a friend who said something like that. Please tell me the story."

"I'll make it short, because you will wish to play, is it not? And if you like, I will teach you the game. That old ghost is an Englishman. Some day he will come into money and a title. Meanwhile he is supported by the Casino. Always, morning, noon and night, year in and year out, he is in these rooms; but he is not allowed to play. If he put one five-franc piece on the tables, biff! would go his pension. Twenty-five years it is since he came, they say. I have been here myself but three, and it is a lifetime! It spoils one for other things, somehow. He lost everything at the tables one night, all those years ago; so he crept down to a lonely place on the shore, and cutting his throat, at the same instant threw himself into the sea. But he could not die. The salt water brought him to life. He was found and nursed by a fisherman. When the Casino people heard what had happened they had pity for the unfortunate one. They are not without hearts, these messieurs! Ever since they have supported him. When he comes into his fortune, perhaps he will pay them—who knows? But in any case, he will disappear and be no more seen. We think he is a spy."

"A spy?" Mary repeated. "What would a spy do here?"

"My poor amateur! There are many. For one thing, they watch for thieves: people who claim the money of others as their own, at the tables. That is quite a way of living. Sometimes it goes very well. But it is a little dangerous. Do you want to play, Mademoiselle? You are sure to have luck on your first night. Even I used to have luck at first."

"Have you none now?" Mary asked, pityingly.

"Oh, I have no longer even the money to try my luck—to see whether it has come back. Yet once I won twenty thousand francs, all from one louis at trente et quarante, and at one seance. That was a night! a memory to live on. And at present it is well I have it to live on, as there is nothing else."

"Oh, how sad, how sad!" exclaimed Mary. "If only you would let me help you a little—in some way."

"You are very good, but of course I could not accept charity," said the pale rose, looking down at her faded lace and muslin finery. "Still, if I bring you luck at the game, and you win, I shall feel I have earned something, is it not?"

"Yes, indeed," Mary assured her, delighted with the simple solution. "But it seems impossible to get near a table."

"It is not impossible," said the other, a gleam bright as the flash of a needle darting from her jade gray eyes. "Many of those people are only watching. They must give way to serious players. You will see! Shall it be trente et quarante or roulette? Roulette, you can tell by the name, is played with a wheel. Trente et quarante with cards—and for that you must go to another room, for all is roulette here. In the card game a louis is the smallest stake. At roulette it is five francs."

"I have only five hundred francs," Mary announced.

"Then I advise roulette. Besides, it is more amusing. Never can one tire of seeing the wheel go round, and wondering where the dear little white ball will come to rest."

"Yes, I feel I shall like roulette better," Mary decided.

"That is right. You have temperament, Mademoiselle. Already you listen to your feelings. I too, have a strong feeling. It is, that we shall be friends. My name is Madame d'Ambre—Madeleine d'Ambre. And yours?"

"Mary Grant."

"Madame or Mademoiselle?"

"Mademoiselle, of course." Mary blushed.

It seemed almost shocking that any one could even fancy she might be married, she who was just out of the cloister, almost a nun.

"Ah, here one is so often Madame while still quite young. Now, let us follow that tall, chic Monsieur who has but one eye and one ear. If we can play what he plays, we are sure to win. Often, when near him, I have prayed that even one five-franc piece might come my way, for since he lost an eye and an ear he never loses money. It was different when he was here a few years ago, before he went out to the east, where he had his mysterious bereavement, no one knows quite what, but it is said that he loved an eastern girl, and was smuggled into a harem. In old days he did nothing but lose, lose."

Mary glanced at the person indicated—a tall man in evening dress, whose features would have been agreeable if it had not been for a black patch over one eye and, on the same side of the head, a black pad over the ear, fastened on by a thin elastic cord. Then she glanced away again, feeling faintly sick. "No, I can't follow him," she said. "Not to win a thousand pounds."

The lady with the pretty name smiled her sad, tired little smile. "You must not turn pale for so small a thing," she laughed. "There are a hundred people in these rooms to-night far stranger than he. I could tell you things! But see, three Germans are going from the table in front of us. When three Germans move, they leave much room. 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. Mary would have retreated, abashed, if she had not feared to hurt her new friend's feelings; but rather than be ungracious, she clung, soon finding herself wedged behind a chair and in front of two German ladies.



VIII

"It is a triumph to seize an advantage from a German!" whispered the Frenchwoman, beginning to look flushed and expectant. "You see that woman in the chair you are touching? She was one of the greatest actresses of the world, Madame Rachel Berenger. Now she is too old and large to act, so she lives in a beautiful villa, across the Italian frontier. She is always coming to Monte Carlo to do this."

"This" was scattering gold pieces all over the table, as if she were sowing peas, then changing her mind about them, and reaching wildly out to place them somewhere else. She was dressed in deep mourning, and had a very white face which might once have been beautiful. Now she was like a dissipated Greek statue draped in black.

"Faites vos jeux, Messieurs," said one of the six extraordinarily respectable and intelligent-looking men who Mary saw at a glance were employes of the Casino. They were in neat black clothes, with black neckties. Peter had told her that the four who spun the roulette wheel and paid the players were called croupiers, and that they were allowed to have no pockets in the clothes they wore when at work, lest they should be tempted to secrete money. But perhaps this was a fable. And there was so much money! In all her life Mary had not seen as much money as lay on this one expanse of green baize.

The man who called on the gamblers to begin staking put out his hand to a large wheel sunk into the middle of the oblong table. This wheel was the same, in immensely exaggerated form, as the toy with which the Dauntreys had played in the train. It was a big disc of shiny metal, set in a shallow well, rimmed with rosewood. All around its edge went a row of little pockets, each coloured alternately red and black. The expanse of green baize was marked off with yellow lines into squares, numbered with yellow figures. The two lengths of yellow patterns going outward from the wheel were facsimiles of each other, and only sixteen players could sit round the table, but eight or ten times that number crowded in double or treble ranks behind the seated ones. The high chairs of the two inspectors who sat opposite one another were usurped by tired women who leaned against them, or tried to perch on the edges; and as the croupier leaned forward to turn the wheel, arms were stretched out everywhere, scrabbling like spiders' legs, staking money selected from piles of notes or gold and silver.

The statuelike woman in black dashed on twenty or thirty louis, some on numbers, some on a red lozenge, some on the words Pair and Manque.

"She cannot possibly win," mumbled Madame d'Ambre. "She has lost her head and staked on so many chances that if one wins she must lose much more on the others. It is absurd. Watch her this time, and next spin I will tell you what to do for yourself."

The croupier had picked a little ivory ball out of one of the pockets before setting the wheel in motion. Then, as it began to revolve, with a deft turn of the wrist he launched the ball in a whizzing rush along a narrow shelf inside the rosewood rim, and in a direction contrary to the whirl of the disc.

For several seconds, which seemed long and tense to Mary, the wheel revolved, the ivory ball dashing wildly around until the croupier proclaimed in his calm, impersonal voice: "Rien ne va plus!" Some people reluctantly ceased their feverish staking of louis, notes, and five-franc pieces, but others dashed on money up to the last instant. The wheel slackened speed; the ball lost momentum, and, rolling down the slope, struck one of a lozenge-shaped row of obstacles. It rebounded, almost sprang out of the wheel, hesitated over a pocket, and leaped into the next, where it lay still.

"Vingt-quatre, noir, pair et passe," announced the calm voice.

"Twenty-four! My age and my ticket number! I meant to stake on it!" Mary cried out aloud in her excitement. "Now it is too late."

Her regret was so keen as to be agonizing. It seemed that a serious misfortune had befallen her. Something in her head was going round with the ball. She felt as if she ought to have won all the money lying there on the table, as if she had a right to it.

People who had won and were having their winnings paid to them were too busy to notice what went on behind their backs; but some of those who had lost and had nothing to do till the time to stake again, tittered faintly and craned their heads round to look at the girl who was almost crying because she had not staked on twenty-four, her age. But Mary did not realize that she was the object of any one's attention, for the statuelike woman in black was shrilly insisting that she had had the maximum, nine louis, on the number 24. "En plein, I tell you, en plein!"

"But no, excuse me, Madame, you had money on black and the second dozen, on pair, and on the carre of twenty-four; but nothing on the number itself. Your maximum was on twenty-six," the croupier explained firmly.

"I tell you it was on twenty-four!" shrieked the actress.

"Madame is mistaken. You staked in so many different places, it is impossible for you to remember."

"It is still more impossible for you. Do you intend to pay me?"

"But certainly, for everything you won."

"And the maximum on twenty-four?"

"Not that, Madame."

"I will complain to the management!"

"As Madame pleases."

"I will stop the game till I am paid!"

One of the two inspectors left his high chair, came to the enraged lady and attempted to soothe her. She looked magnificent in her passion, ten years having fallen like a mask from the marble face.

The croupier, who had paid her for several bets won, attempted to go on with his duties. People, some delighting in the "row," others annoyed at the delay, placed their stakes, but she, a lioness at bay, stared furiously without putting a piece on the table. As the disc turned, however, she pounced. She threw a louis into the wheel. But the croupier, without changing countenance, took out the coin, pushed it back to her, and began spinning again. In went another louis and again the croupier stopped the wheel. Voices rose in complaint: Russian voices, German voices, English voices. "Is this going on all night?"

"Pay Madame," said one of the inspectors.

Quietly and with incredible quickness nine times thirty-five louis were counted out, payment for a maximum on a number. As the croupier pushed the notes and gold across the table, a beautiful white hand, blazing with rings, thrust it proudly back again. "That is all I wanted," the actress said, with the air of Lady Macbeth. "The acknowledgment that I was right. Keep the money."

The croupier shrugged his shoulders, and spun the wheel, with a bored air.

"Faites vos jeux, Messieurs."

"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. The ball slipped into the pocket of number 21. "Too bad! But better luck next time. Will you try a simple chance, red or black, for instance? Or one of the dozens?"

"No, twenty-four again," answered a voice that Mary hardly knew as her own. "I must!" With a trembling hand, she gave her friend nine louis. "That's the maximum for a number, you said," she faltered. "Please put it on."

"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. She tried to tell herself, as the big wheel spun, that this was not important at all; that it did not really matter what happened: yet something inside her said, "It's the most important thing in the world, to win, to win, to make all these people envy you. It isn't the money, it's the joy, the triumph, the ecstasy."

The ball dropped. Mary could not look, could not have seen if she had looked: but her whole soul listened for the croupier's announcement.

"Vingt-quatre, noir, pair et passe."

She trembled all over, as if she were going to fall. She could hardly believe that she had heard aright, until Madame d'Ambre exclaimed close to her ear: "You have won! I told you that I would bring you luck!"

The actress, petulant with persistent ill fortune, got up muttering, and pushed back her chair. Mechanically Mary dropped into it. A pile of money, notes and gold, was moved toward her by the croupier's rake. People were staring. She was young and beautiful, and evidently half fainting with excitement. Besides, she had won a large sum. It was always a good thing to win on a number en plein. But to win the maximum on a number! That somehow did not often happen except to Russian grand dukes and American millionaires.

Mary, confused, and quivering like a struck violin, took her winnings, but, supposing all the money on her side of the table to be hers also, earned by the nine louis, began gayly to gather in with small, white-gloved hands everything within reach.

A cry of protest went up, half laughing, half indignant. Groups of non-players who had been chatting or strolling round the rooms hurried to the table to see "what was the row," any sensation, big or small, being an event to receive thankfully.

"Mais, Mademoiselle!"

The small, predatory hands were arrested: quickly it was explained that when a player wins he has not won all the money on the table. There are others also in luck. Mary, abashed, but too excited to be deeply shamed, apologized in pretty French. Those she would unwittingly have robbed were disarmed by soft eyes and the appeal of dimples. Even hawklike old women ceased to glare. "It is her first seance," was the forgiving whisper. The neat piles of money which she had reduced to ruin and confusion were sorted out again between croupiers and players, while the game obligingly waited. If the offender had been old and dowdy, every one would have grumbled angrily at the bother and delay, but as it was, men grinned and women were tolerant. After three minutes' halt play was ready to begin again.

"Better come away now, Mademoiselle. It is I who counsel you," advised Madame d'Ambre. "It is not well to trust such luck too far. Or else, play with a few five-franc pieces to amuse yourself. If you win, so much to the good. If you lose, what matter? You have still the gros lot."

"I couldn't do that. I must trust my luck. I am going on. I shall play on twenty-four again. I wish there were more ways than one for me to back it, and I would," Mary cried, her cheeks red bonfires of excitement.

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; a cheval—the number and its neighbour; your own and two others—transversale plain; the carre—four in a square; six—the transversale simple: the dozen in which your number is; its column; also the colour. Twenty-four is black. If your number loses, you may win on something else."

"Very well. Maximums on all, please."

"Impossible! You may not have money enough. On other chances the maximums are much larger."

Mary, confused and fearful of being too late, did not stop to reflect or argue. "Nine louis on each of the chances, then," she panted.

Madame d'Ambre, reflecting selfishly that even if all stakes lost there would still be a good sum to divide from the last winnings, began placing money in desperate haste, the croupier delaying for an instant his rien ne va plus, while one of his fellows helped in putting on the gold. Others, who had finished staking over each other's hats and shoulders, and the whole ring of watchers outside, awaited the decision of Mary's destiny with almost as keen interest as if it were their own.

"Vingt-quatre, noir, pair et passe."

A murmur rose, and went to Mary's head like wine. This seemed a miracle, performed for her. Unconscious of irreverence, she thought that surely the saints had worked this wonder. She forgot that, because she won, others must lose.

"It is marvellous! But these blessed amateurs! It is always they who have the great luck. Twice running—and after twenty-four had been spun just before twenty-one."

The numbers were all marked in their right colours with roulette pencils on little cards, or in well-kept notebooks by the players. Every one knew what had "come out" at the table for many past coups.

"If you'll back twenty-four again, I'll go on it, too," said, in English, a young man in the chair at Mary's right. He was a brown, well-groomed, clean-shaven youth, whose hair was so light that it looked straw-coloured in contrast with his sunburnt skin. "It's en chaleur, as they say of numbers when they keep coming up. It may come a third time running. I've seen it happen. Five repetitions is the record. What do you say?"

"I meant to play twenty-four again, anyway," Mary answered, with the peculiar soft obstinacy which had opened the gates of Saint Ursula-of-the-Lake and brought her to Monte Carlo.

"You are plucky!"

"This time, surely, I've money enough for maximums on everything," Mary said to the Frenchwoman behind her, who was now becoming superstitious concerning the luck of her petite dinde.

Without protest, Madame d'Ambre selected from the piles of gold and notes now ranged in front of Mary the stakes indicated, and, with a hand not quite steady, placed those within her reach. The neighbouring croupier, faintly smiling, obligingly did the rest, noting without surprise that many players were sportingly, yet timidly, risking fat five-franc pieces on the amateur's number. It was the sort of thing they generally did, the imbeciles, when a player was having a sensational run of luck. But certainly there was something magnetic and fatal about this pretty young woman, who was new to the game and the place, something curiously inspiring. Not only he as well as the gamblers felt it, but the croupier at the wheel. The spinner felt in his bones that whether he wished it or not he was certain to spin a third twenty-four.

A round of applause went up from perhaps fifty pairs of hands when the ball was seen to lie once more in the pocket numbered 24. Mary, realizing that the applause was meant for her, felt like a spirit released from its body. She was a goddess on a pinnacle. This was life: the wine of life. It was not the money she thought of. All the gold and paper which had suddenly become hers was nothing in itself, but what it represented was victory extending over the forces of nature. This mysterious game, whose next turn none could foretell, seemed to be yielding its secret to her. She had the conviction that Something was telling her what to do, what would happen with the spin of the wheel. It would be madness and a kind of vile ingratitude to stop now, while the Something was there.

Hearing the applause, which meant a coup of uncommon interest, people came hurrying from every direction, some even running, with a peculiar step which kept them from slipping on the polished floor. Many had learned this from long practice in running in with the early gamblers at the morning opening of the Casino, when it is "first come, first served," at the chairs.

Those who had been watching the play at other tables, or those who had been losing, joined the rush.

"What is she going to do now, cette petite sorciere?" was the question. Hearing it, Mary was flattered to a higher pitch of excitement and self-confidence. She must, she must do something to justify everybody's expectation. The Casino was hers, and there was no world outside—nothing but this magic place of golden light and golden coins.

"What next?" inquired Madame d'Ambre, late mentor, now courtier.

"I'll do whatever you do," said the brown young man, who was English or American.

She looked at the disc as a seeress looks at a crystal. The spinner had his hand on the cross-piece of metal which turns the wheel.

"What does that 0 mean, on the little brown square between the red and black numbers?" she asked her neighbour gravely.

"That's what they call 'zero.' You can bet on it like any number; but when it comes, if you're not on it, all your stakes go—biff!—except on the simple chances, when you are put in 'prison,' or else you can take back half. Lots of people like zero better than anything, because they think the croupiers try to spin it, for the good of the bank. It's called l'ami de la maison."

"How nice and friendly," said Mary. "I'll put money on zero. What's the maximum?"

"The same as on the other numbers en plein: nine louis."

"Then I'll have that on zero," said Mary.

Many players followed her lead, and every one was calling out "zero" and pushing or throwing coins to the croupiers to be staked on that chance.

"Zero!"

Mary was paid nine times thirty-five louis, six thousand three hundred francs, and the others who, superstitiously following her lead, had risked five-franc pieces and louis on l'ami de la maison, shared her luck in different degrees.

"Zero once more, please, Madame," said Mary to her companion.

"But no! impossible! It will be something else."

"Perhaps. Still—I will try."

She was right. Zero came again, followed by louder rounds of applause. By this time the whole Casino knew what was going on. A glorified amateur, an English girl, was winning maximums on numbers again and again, in succession, at the table nearest the wall-portrait of the architect, in the Salle Schmidt. Non-players or discouraged losers bore down upon the "architect's table," running even from the distant trente-et-quarante room.

The story sounded rather like a fairy tale, but the enormous crowd round the centre of interest, and the comparatively slack business being done at other tables, proved its truth. None of the newcomers, even the tallest, could see, but they could hear, and they could feel the thrill from the inner circle.

"And now, Mademoiselle? What will you do? Remember, your luck can't go on forever," murmured Madame d'Ambre, anxious to divide the spoil, which might yet vanish like fairy gold.

"I—I will take twenty-four again, and everything round it."

Many players who had money left, and could reach to put on their stakes, also chose twenty-four. And twenty-four came up. This was historic! No one but the Grand Duke Michael and the few famous punters of the world had such persistent and consecutive luck.

A chef de table in a high chair stood up and unobtrusively beckoned a footman hovering on the far fringe of the crowd. Three minutes later, with equal unobtrusiveness, more money was brought, lest the supply of the table should run low. Few noticed, or knew that anything unusual had happened, with the exception of the play; but Madame d'Ambre had been hoping for and expecting something of the sort.

"They are afraid you will break the bank," she said, in a stage-whisper not meant to be wasted. Those near her who understood French glanced up quickly. Croupiers smiled and said nothing. A murmur went round the table, and flowed like the rippling circles from a stone dropped in a pond, to the crowd which ringed it in.

"What do you mean?" asked Mary.

"Oh, the bank does not really break! They do not even stop play in these days. But they send for more money lest it be needed. Ah, the colossal compliment!"

The pride in Mary's heart was like a stab of pain, almost unbearable in its intensity. But suddenly, as if the current of her thought had been broken, her inspiration seemed gone. The Something was no longer there, telling her where to stake. She wished to play again, but felt at sea, without a rudder. 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. "We must have all the gold put into mille notes, or you cannot carry it."

For an instant Mary had forgotten the money and the necessity of taking it away, but Madame d'Ambre, who had now firmly identified her own interests with those of her protegee, attended to the practical duties of the partnership. She was somewhat disagreeably conscious that the young man's eyes were fixed upon her as she collected her friend's enormous winnings. As people made way for the Frenchwoman and her starlike companion to pass, this man gathered up his small store of gold and silver, and followed. On the outskirts of the crowd stood the Dauntreys and their party. Mary and Madame d'Ambre passed close to them, but the heroine of the moment was too intensely excited to recognize any one. She walked as if on air, her hands full of notes, some of which she was stuffing into her gold-beaded bag.

"Why, it's the girl in the train who said she was going to Florence," exclaimed Dodo Wardropp. "Can she be the one who's made the sensation?"

"Yes, it's she," said Lady Dauntrey. "See how they're looking at her, and pointing her out. I wonder if it's true she's won thousands of pounds?"

No one answered. Lord Dauntrey had slipped quietly away from the others, and found a place at a table near enough to play over some one's head. This was the first time he had found a chance to test his new system, except on the toy roulette wheel. He began staking five-franc pieces, and writing down notes in a small book. The bored look was burned out of his weary eyes. They brightened, and a more healthful colour slowly drove away his unnatural paleness.

The others, who had been playing in the new rooms, did not follow or look for him. They stared at every one who seemed worth staring at. The two Americans and Dodo expected Lady Dauntrey to know everybody. It was for this, partly, that they were paying large sums to her, and they felt a depressed need of getting their money's worth. So far the arrangements for their comfort at the Villa Bella Vista were disappointing. Still, two young men of title were there, and that was something, although one of them was only an Austrian count, and the other no better than a baronet. But Lord Dauntrey promised for to-morrow morning Dom Ferdinand de Trevanna, the Pretender to an historic throne.

Dodo, according to Miss Collis, had "grabbed" the English baronet, and left her only the Austrian count, who looked younger than any man could really be, and had a wasp-waist which, when he bowed—as he did irritatingly often—seemed liable to snap in two. It was if anything more slender than her own, and she disliked him for it. Lady Dauntrey had Mrs. Collis on her hands, and looked sombrely discontented. But she waked up at sight of Mary. The long, pale eyes between black fringes followed the blue and silver-gold figure with silent interest. Then the handsome face became subtle and greedy.

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. They knew Madame d'Ambre, knew her very well indeed, for they called her "Madeleine" or "Chere Lena." Nevertheless, she did not appear pleased to see them.

"Bon soir, mes amies," she said evasively, and would have passed on, but, laughingly, they stopped her. One, who had a marvellous complexion, large black eyes, and bright golden hair, exclaimed, with a charming Parisian accent, that they could not let their Madeleine leave them like that. They had been waiting to congratulate her friend.

"We pray that thou wilt introduce us, dear one," the spokeswoman suggested. "Surely Mademoiselle wishes to add to her happiness by making others happy?" She turned a swimming gaze upon Mary. "Figure to yourself, Mademoiselle; we are unlucky; four companions in misery. It is our bad luck which has united us. Our jewels are all pawned. Not one of us has eaten anything since the first dejeuner. And we have a hunger!"

Mary stared, disconcerted by this tale of misfortune suddenly flung at her head, and scarcely sure if it were not a practical joke. The four young women were so charmingly dressed, their hair was so carefully waved, their complexions so pink and white, that it was impossible to believe in their poverty. Besides, they could evidently afford perfume, so luscious that it must be expensive. Mary thought that they smelled very good; then, a little too good; then, far, far too good, and at last almost unbearable.

"You are joking," she said, timidly.

"Indeed we are not," replied another of the group, a red-haired girl with brown, almond-shaped eyes. "We so hope that you will be an angel, and invite us all to supper."

"What nonsense, Clotilde!" exclaimed Madame d'Ambre. "We have already an engagement for supper."

"Ah, then surely, Mademoiselle, you will share your luck with us in some way? Otherwise, you can't hope to keep it."

"I should be glad to share it," Mary said, warmly. "What can I do?"

The red-haired lady broke into gestures. "She who has won a fortune asks us who have nothing what she can do for us? How she is amusing, this pretty English one!"

"Would you—might I—that is——" Mary began to stammer.

"We would—you might!" Clotilde finished for her, laughing.

"I wonder you have not more pride!" Madame d'Ambre reproached the four, her white-rose cheeks flushing with annoyance.

"Pride does not buy us supper, or new hats," the girl with golden hair reminded her.

"Oh, please take these, and do whatever you like with them," Mary said hastily, her voice quivering with shyness and compassion. She began dealing out her thousand-franc notes, and did not stop until she had given one to each of the four.

It was at this moment that Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, unable to resist his desire to follow Mary to the Casino, came within sight of her. This was the picture he saw: the strikingly dressed girl, bright-eyed, carmine-cheeked, feverishly distributing notes to a crowd of young women more showily dressed than herself.

He turned away instantly, chilled and disgusted.



IX

Others were less fastidious than Vanno.

The calm-faced man with black pads over the left eye and ear joined Madame d'Ambre, with a lazy yet determined air, and a glance of interest at Mary. Seeing the brown youth who had been at her table, the elder man nodded to him. This gave Mary's late neighbour an excuse which he had wanted. He stopped, and held out his hand. "How are you, Captain Hannaford?" he asked.

"Hullo, Carleton!" returned the other. "Here for the Nice flying week?"

"Yes," said Carleton, who, beside Hannaford the Englishman, showed by contrast his American origin. His chin was all that Peter had said an American's chin ought to be, and he had keen, brilliant blue eyes. Hannaford, though taller than he, was stouter as well as older, and therefore appeared less tall. He was of a more stolid type, and it seemed incredible that such an adventure as that sketched by Madame d'Ambre could approach such a man. Yet for once, gossip and truth were one. The thing had happened. Hannaford had lately retired from the army, after being stationed for two years in Egypt. For months he had lingered aimlessly in Monte Carlo. Life seemed over for him. But time remained, and must be killed, unless he preferred to kill himself. He had met Dick Carleton in Egypt last year, where the youngest American aeronaut was making experiments with a new monoplane in a convenient tract of desert. At that time Captain Hannaford had not worn the little black silk pads. He was grateful to the American for not seeming to look at them now.

"I'm here for the flying, with a hydro-aeroplane I'm rather proud of," Carleton went on, "but I'm not staying at Monte. I'm visiting Jim Schuyler, at his place between here and Cabbe-Roquebrune. Lovely place it is. No wonder he never bothers with the Casino, except for concerts and opera. Have you met him?"

"No. But I know him by name, of course. The names of these American millionaires are all-pervading, like microbes. Why does he pitch his tent on the threshold of Monte, if not for the Casino?"

"He says lots of people live about here who never play: and there are other attractions. He has all the gambling he wants in Wall Street: comes here for beauty and music. He gets plenty of both; doesn't go in for society any more than for roulette, but seems to enjoy himself, the two or three months he does the hermit act in his gorgeous garden. He's at the opera to-night. Motored me over. We'll meet, and go back together to Stellamare. Meanwhile——"

"Meanwhile, I rather guess, as you'd say, that you'd like to meet my charming—er—acquaintance, and her friend."

"I never say 'guess,' nor does anybody else, except in books or plays, but I should like to meet the ladies."

"Madame d'Ambre is so busy regretting she didn't get smaller change for her protegee's unforeseen charities that she's forgotten us. I was watching the fun at your table, toward the last."

At the sound of her name, the Frenchwoman turned. Four thousand francs was gone forever, but there was as little use in wailing over money wasted as in crying for spilt milk, so she smiled her pathetic, turned-down smile at Captain Hannaford, and looked wistfully at Dick Carleton. Then quickly, lest further irrevocable things should happen, she laid her hand on Mary's arm. It was a gloved hand, and the glove had been mended many times. Soon, it must be thrown away; but perhaps that need not matter now. There might be a path leading to new gloves and other things. She introduced Captain Hannaford to Mademoiselle Grant, and he in turn introduced "Mr. Richard Carleton, the well-known airman," to them both. Madeleine could speak a little English, but with difficulty, and preferred French. Still, it would have been unwise to tell secrets in English when she was near.

Seeing that she had no intention of passing on the introduction, Clotilde et Cie. retired gracefully, each of the four a thousand francs richer and a thousand times happier than she had been five minutes before.

"What about supper?" said Hannaford. "Gambling always makes me hungry. I'm in luck to-night. Won't you three be my guests at Ciro's?"

"You are always in luck nowadays," sighed Madame d'Ambre. A shadow seemed to pass over the stolid face of the man, but she did not see it. "Naturally we accept the kind invitation, is it not so, dear Mademoiselle?"

"I must be at Ciro's anyhow, about midnight," said Carleton, "for Schuyler asked me to meet him there for a Welsh rabbit after the opera. 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.

As Madame d'Ambre drew her friend aside for a murmur of advice, the two men looked at each other, Carleton puzzled, Hannaford with raised eyebrows. "I think they're both charming," the American remarked in a low voice. "That little Madame d'Ambre isn't nearly as pretty as Miss Grant, but she's fetching, and looks a bit down on her luck, as if she'd had trouble."