lla Robbia less deliberately yet with more ardour had thrown
himself into the same experiment. He thought that Mary's anger against
him might have one good result: in making her wish to leave the table
where he had come to sit. She could scarcely fall upon worse luck
elsewhere, and perhaps she might give up play for the evening if she
went away from this unlucky corner. If a wish of his could be granted by
fate, she would never play again. Yet, desiring this with all the force
that was in him, he began nevertheless to gamble, for the first time
since coming to Monte Carlo. No conscientious scruple had held him back
hitherto; but the game had not appealed to him. He disliked the
crowding, the sordidness and vulgarity which, to his mind, attended it;
and it seemed to him that public gambling was an unintelligent, greedy
vice.

His idea in putting on money now was merely to "pay for his place,"
whence he did not mean to move as long as Mary stayed. Many other men
would be ready to snatch the chair the instant he abandoned it,
therefore he had no right to usurp the Casino's property without
payment. He had no small money with him, and to avoid the trouble of
changing notes with a croupier, he staked a hundred francs on red, the
colour of the number which Lord Dauntrey had just advised Mary to
choose.

As if she fully realized that her luck had failed her to-night, for
several spins she had been guided entirely by Lord Dauntrey. He was
directing her play according to his system, to which his faith still
desperately clung, though he now admitted to his friends that his own
capital was not big enough to test it fairly. His game was upon numbers,
columns, and dozens, all at the same time, increasing the stakes, as he
said, "with the bank's money," or, in other words, after a win. It was
therefore a loss following directly upon a win which was the worst enemy
of the system, and occasionally there came a long run of exactly this
alternation: win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. It happened so to-night,
greatly to his annoyance, as he hoped to interest Miss Grant in his
method. Dom Ferdinand was sulkily waiting for more remittances, and
amusing himself meanwhile by throwing about a few louis here and there,
undirected by his friend Lord Dauntrey. The Marquis de Casablanca had
stopped play entirely, perhaps in the hope of setting his patron a wise
example. The Collises had never been useful. Dodo Wardropp liked to
gamble "on her own,