attack of thinking them perfect, but all the same Nina and I
became better friends than we had been since I had left school, and we
were together so often that nothing but a promise to talk French to her
prevented my people from forbidding me to come near the hotel.

On Saturday afternoons, however, I stipulated that I should do and talk
what I pleased, but unless I went to the Casino there was not much to
do on my first holiday after Nina had arrived; so I persuaded her to
come to a concert, have tea on the terrace, and then watch the "petits
chevaux." She was ready to do anything, but my mother detested any
kind of gambling, and begged me not to take her into the room in which
the tables were. I could have imagined the time when to be told that
something was not good for her was the surest way to make Nina want it,
but now she said at once that she would much rather sit on the terrace
than stay in a room with a crowd of people, and after tea I left her
for a few minutes while I went for a walk through the rooms. There was
a crowd round each table, and not being able to see anything I was
going back to Nina at once when I felt some one touch me on the arm. I
turned round quickly for I suspected that my pocket was being picked,
though that would not have caused me any serious inconvenience, and
before I could remember what I ought not to say I had exclaimed "Good
Heavens," but if people will turn up in utterly unlikely places they
ought not to be too critical of the way in which they are greeted. I
should as soon have expected to see Mr. Edwardes at a Covent Garden
Ball as the Warden in a French Casino, and I had an intense and
immediate desire to ask him what he was doing there. I suppressed it,
however, and only shook him so violently by the hand that he winced
perceptibly.

"I have been guilty of watching your movements for the last four
minutes," he said, as we walked towards the door leading to the
terrace. "I observed you as you entered this chamber of horrors, and I
was afraid that you were about to give an exhibition of your
generosity."

"Did you think I was going to play?" I asked.

"Yes, if that is the right expression for an act of madness. There
are, if I have observed exactly, eight chances against you, and the
fool, for believe me he is a fool, who is fortunate enough to win is
paid seven times his stake. The man who tries to make money in that
way must be generous and a fool."

"The bank m