urved lips were free from the grim lines of
concentrated acquisitiveness. She was thirty-two years old but she
looked much younger as she stood there, her lips a little parted in a
pleased smile of anticipation. She was leaning a little over the table
and her eyes were fixed with humorous intentness upon the spinning
wheel. Even amongst that crowd of beautiful women she possessed a
certain individual distinction. She not only looked what she was--an
Englishwoman of good birth--but there was a certain delicate aloofness
about her expression and bearing which gave an added charm to a
personality which seemed to combine the two extremes of provocativeness
and reserve. One would have hesitated to address to her even the chance
remarks which pass so easily between strangers around the tables.

"Violet here!" the man murmured under his breath. "Violet!"

There was tragedy in the whisper, a gleam of something like tragedy,
too, in the look which passed between the man and the woman a few
moments later. With her hands full of plaques which she had just won,
she raised her eyes at last from the board. The smile upon her lips was
the delighted smile of a girl. And then, as she was in the act of
sweeping her winnings into her gold bag, she saw the man opposite. The
smile seemed to die from her lips; it appeared, indeed, to pass with all
else of expression from her face. The plaques dropped one by one through
her fingers, into the satchel. Her eyes remained fixed upon him as
though she were looking upon a ghost. The seconds seemed drawn out into
a grim hiatus of time. The croupier's voice, the muttered imprecation of
a loser by her side, the necessity of making some slight movement in
order to allow the passage of an arm from some one in search of
change--some such trifle at last brought her back from the shadows. Her
expression became at once more normal. She did not remove her eyes but
she very slightly inclined her head towards the man. He, in return,
bowed very gravely and without a smile.

The table in front of her was cleared now. People were beginning to
consider their next coup. The voice of the croupier, with his
parrot-like cry, travelled down the board.

_"Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs."_

The woman made no effort to stake. After a moment's hesitation she
yielded up her place, and moving backwards, seated herself upon an empty
divan. Rapidly the thoughts began to form themselves in her mind. Her
delicate ey