shrugged her shoulders and smiled faintly. Yvonne Ferad
was a born gambler. To her losses came as easily as gains. The
Administration knew that--and they also knew how at the little
pigeon-hole where counters were exchanged for cheques she came often and
handed over big sums in exchange for drafts upon certain banks, both in
Paris and in London.

Yet they never worried. Her lucky play attracted others who usually
lost. Once, a year before, a Frenchman who occupied a seat next to her
daily for a month lost over a quarter of a million sterling, and one
night threw himself under the Paris _rapide_ at the long bridge over
the Var. But on hearing of it the next day from a croupier Mademoiselle
merely shrugged her shoulders, and said:

"I warned him to return to Paris. The fool! It is only what I expected."

Hugh looked only once across at the mysterious woman whom Dorise
had indicated, and then drew her away. As a matter of fact he had no
intention that mademoiselle should notice him.

"What do you know of her?" he asked in a casual way when they were on
the other side of the great saloon.

"Well, a Frenchman I met in the hotel the day before yesterday told
me all sorts of queer stories about her," replied the girl. "She's
apparently a most weird person, and she has uncanny good luck at the
tables. He said that she had won a large fortune during the last couple
of years or so."

Hugh made no remark as to the reason of his visit to the Riviera, for,
indeed, he had arrived only the day previously, and she had welcomed him
joyously. Little did she dream that her lover had come out from London
to see that woman who was declared to be so notorious.

"I noticed her playing this afternoon," Hugh said a moment later in
a quiet reflective tone. "What do the gossips really say about her,
Dorise? All this is interesting. But there are so many interesting
people here."

"Well, the man who told me about her was sitting with me outside the
Cafe de Paris when she passed across the Place to the Casino. That
caused him to make the remarks. He said that her past was obscure. Some
people say that she was a Danish opera singer, others declare that
she was the daughter of a humble tobacconist in Marseilles, and others
assert that she is English. But all agree that she is a clever and very
dangerous woman."

"Why dangerous?" inquired Hugh in surprise.

"Ah! That I don't know. The man who told me merely hinted at her past
career, and