dealt to Sylvia, and again and again she
turned up a Nine, a Queen, a King, an Eight--. Once more the crowd
excitedly followed her luck, staring at her with grateful pleasure, with
fascinated interest, as she brought them temporary wealth.

The more she won, the more she made other people win, the more miserable
Sylvia felt, and as she saw Count Paul's heap of notes and gold
diminishing, she grew unutterably wretched. Eight hundred pounds? What
an enormous lot of money to risk in an evening!

Then there came a change. For a few turns of the game luck deserted her,
and Sylvia breathed more freely. She glanced up into Count Paul's
impassive face. He looked worn and tired, as well he might be after his
long journey from Brittany.

Then once more magic fortune came back. It seemed as if only good
cards--variations on the fateful eights and nines--could be dealt her.

Suddenly she pushed her chair back and got up. Protesting murmurs rose on
every side.

"If Madame leaves, the luck will go with her!" she heard one or two
people murmur discontentedly.

Chester was looking at her with amused, sarcastic, disapproving eyes.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "I don't wonder you enjoy gambling, Sylvia! Are you
often taken this way? How much of that poor fellow's money have you won?"

"Ninety pounds," she answered mechanically.

"Ninety pounds! And have you ever lost as much as that, may I ask, in an
evening?" he was still speaking with a good deal of sarcasm in his voice.
But still, "money talks," and even against his will Chester was
impressed. Ninety pounds represents a very heavy bill of costs in a
country solicitor's practice.

Sylvia looked dully into his face.

"No," she said slowly. "No, the most I ever lost in one evening was ten
pounds. I always left off playing when I had lost ten pounds. That is the
one advantage the player has over the banker--he can stop playing when he
has lost a small sum."

"Oh! I see!" exclaimed Chester drily.

And then they became silent, for close by where they now stood, a little
apart from the table, an angry altercation was going on between Monsieur
and Madame Wachner. It was the first time Sylvia had ever heard the
worthy couple quarrelling in public the one with the other.

"I tell you I will _not_ go away!" L'Ami Fritz was saying between his
teeth. "I feel that to-night I am in luck, in great luck! What I ask you
to do, Sophie, is to go away yourself, and leave me alone. I have made a