lighter side of
woman's nature. The smart woman from Paris, Vienna, or Rome never loses
her head. She gambles always discreetly. The fashionable cocottes seldom
lose much. They gamble at the tables discreetly and make eyes at men if
they win, or if they lose. If the latter they generally obtain a "loan"
from somebody. What matter? When one is at "Monty" one is not in a
Wesleyan chapel. English men and women when they go to the Riviera leave
their morals at home with their silk hats and Sunday gowns. And it is
strange to see the perfectly respectable Englishwoman admiring the same
daring costumes of the French pseudo-"countesses" at which they have
held up their hands in horror when they have seen them pictured in the
papers wearing those latest "creations" of the Place Vendome.

Yes. It is a hypocritical world, and nowhere is canting hypocrisy more
apparent than inside the Casino at Monte Carlo.

While the two Englishmen were strolling over the polished parquet of the
elegant world-famous _salles-de-jeu_ "Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo" was
experiencing quite an extraordinary run of luck.

But "Mademoiselle," as the croupiers always called her, was usually
lucky. She was an experienced, and therefore a careful player. When she
staked a maximum it was not without very careful calculation upon the
chances. Mademoiselle was well known to the Administration. Often her
winnings were sensational, hence she served as an advertisement to the
Casino, for her success always induced the uninitiated and unwary to
stake heavily, and usually with disastrous results.

The green-covered gaming table, at which she was sitting next to the end
croupier on the left-hand side, was crowded. She sat in what is known at
Monte as "the Suicide's Chair," for during the past eight years ten men
and women had sat in that fatal chair and had afterwards ended their
lives abruptly, and been buried in secret in the Suicide's Cemetery.

The croupiers at that table are ever watchful of the visitor who, all
unawares, occupies that fatal chair. But Mademoiselle, who knew of it,
always laughed the superstition to scorn. She habitually sat in that
chair--and won.

Indeed, that afternoon she was winning--and very considerably too. She
had won four maximums _en plein_ within the last half-hour, and the
crowd around the table noting her good fortune were now following her.

It was easy for any novice in the Rooms to see that the handsome,
dark-eyed woman wa