gin to cry and offer me pawn tickets as
security."

"Who are 'they'?"

"Oh, poor creatures--seldom poor dears--who've _lost_, you know. As I
suppose your one has?"

"On the contrary," said Dick, almost sharply. "She's won tremendous
sums. She simply can't lose--anything except her head."

"Not her heart? But without joking, if she isn't a 'case,' why do you
want me to----"

"Because I think she ought to have some one to look after her, some one
who knows the ropes. Honestly, Rose, I'd be awfully obliged if you'd
call."

"I will of course," Rose answered. "Have I got to be agreeable to any
mothers or aunts she may have lurking in the background?"

"That's the trouble. She hasn't got a soul."

"Oh! And she is quite young?"

"Sometimes she looks a baby. Sometimes I think she's a little older."

"Then she probably is. Where's she staying?"

"At the Hotel de Paris."

"My gracious! _Alone_ at a big Monte Carlo hotel! A young girl! No
wonder you glare out of the window while you ask me to call on her, and
stick your hands deep in your pockets. People won't allow me for an
instant to forget I'm a clergyman's wife. _Et tu Brute!_"

"I told you she was a lady." Dick turned rather white. "She doesn't know
what she's doing. I'm sure she doesn't. She--even Schuyler, who reads
most people at sight like A B C, can't make her out. She's a mystery."

"Forgive me," said Rose. "I was half in fun. I wouldn't hurt your
_Flying-Fish_ feelings for anything on earth or in air. Is she pretty,
and is she American--or what?"

"She's perfectly beautiful, and she's English, I think."

"Hasn't she told you?"

"No. She says nothing about herself--I mean about herself before she
came here."

"What's past is past. Dark or fair?--not her past, but her complexion?"

"Fair."

"_Not_ one of those pink and white girls picked out in blue and gold,
one sees about so much?"

"As different from them as moonlight from footlights. If ever you went
into the Casino, you couldn't have helped having her pointed out to
you. She's always there, and she's so awfully pretty and dresses so--so
richly, and wins such a lot that everybody stares and talks. She's the
sensation of the place."

"But I never do go into the Casino, of course--that is, not into the
Rooms. I go to the Thursday Classical Concerts, and even that St. George
shakes his head over, as it's inside the fatal door. You see he's here
to preach against gambling, among other thing