Power who challenges the
individual, it is he who spreads the net for the mass. She liquefies the
brain of man; he petrifies or ossifies the heart. From her comes
craziness, from him perversity: a more provocative and, on the whole,
more contagious disease. The gambler does not seek to lead his fellows
into perdition; the snared of the Demon have pleasure in the act. Hence
our naturally interested forecasts of the contests between them: for if
he is beaten, as all must be at the close of an extended game with her,
we have only to harden the brain against her allurements and we enter a
clearer field.

Woodseer said to Fleetwood: 'That ball has a look of a nymph running
round and round till she changes to one of the Fates.'

'We'll have a run with her,' said Fleetwood, keener for business than for
metaphors--at the moment.

He received gold for a bank-note. Captain Abrane hurriedly begged a loan.
Both of them threw. Neither of them threw on the six numbers Woodseer
would have selected, and they lost. He stated that the number of 17 had
won before. Abrane tried the transversal enclosing this favoured number.
'Of course!' he cried, with foul resignation and a hostile glare: the
ball had seated itself and was grinning at him from the lowest of the
stalls.

Fleetwood quitted the table-numbers to throw on Pair; he won, won again,
pushed his luck and lost, dragging Abrane with him. The giant varied his
tone of acquiescence in Fortune's whims: 'Of course! I 've only to fling!
Luck hangs right enough till I put down my stake.'

'If the luck has gone three times, the chances . . . .' Woodseer was
rather inquiring than pronouncing. . . . Lord Fleetwood cut him short.
'The chances are equally the contrary!' and discomposed his argumentative
mind.

As argument in such a place was impossible, he had a wild idea of
example--'just to see'--; and though he smiled, his brain was liquefying.
Upon a calculation of the chances, merely for the humour of it, he laid a
silver piece on the first six, which had been neglected. They were now
blest. He laid his winnings on the numbed 17. Who would have expected it?
why, the player, surely! Woodseer comported himself like a veteran: he
had proved that you can calculate the chances. Instead of turning in
triumph to Lord Fleetwood, he laid gold pieces to hug the number 17, and
ten in the centre. And it is the truth, he hoped then to lose and have
done with it--after proving his case. The ball w