s 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, wi