clouded with sullen gloom.

When the newest and humblest guests of the Villa Bella Vista lost money
beyond a certain limit, the bare thought of the Casino gave them mental
indigestion. They then stayed safely at home, and infested the unaired
drawing-room--pale people reading pink papers, and talking "system"; or
flushed people playing bridge for small points, with the windows
hermetically closed and their backs to the sunset. They quarrelled among
themselves in a liverish way over cards and politics, and agreed only on
the subject of such titled acquaintances as they had in common, all of
whom seemed to be perfectly charming. But these heraldic conversations
bored Mary even more intensely than the squabbles. There came a time
when desperation got the upper hand of that prudence so earnestly
recommended by Lord Dauntrey. She could not endure the long evenings in
the villa, and felt that she must again tempt fortune at the Casino.

One night after dinner she broke to her host the news that she need no
longer trouble him to win money for her. She would take back her own
half of the capital he was using, and play the old game once more.

"If I have a few days' luck, I think the wisest thing to do next would
be to go away," she went on, forcing herself to laugh quite gayly, as if
there were nobody at Monte Carlo whom it would hurt her cruelly never to
see again. "I've stayed on and on, when all the time I ought to have
been somewhere else. And I've never had courage to write my--my friends
at home what I've been doing. Just one more 'flutter,' and
then--goodbye!"

Her thoughts flew afar, as she made this little set speech. She saw
Vanno as he had looked that day, and on other days when she had
deliberately cut him in the street, or in the Casino, though she knew he
had been waiting in the hope that she would relent and let him speak.
His eyes haunted her everywhere. It seemed to her that they were very
sad, and had lost that burning, vital light of the spirit which in
contrast had made the personalities of other men dull as smouldering
fires. Occasionally he was near her at the tables, for he played
constantly now, recklessly and often disastrously according to
Hannaford.

The word "goodbye" and its attendant thought of departure brought
Vanno's image as clearly before Mary as if he had walked into the ugly
drawing-room, where people were shuffling cards for bridge or putting on
their wraps for the Casino. It was Vanno