l try, she thought, to fish up a coin
thrown into the sea. She felt like a thief.

"There ought to be another louis," she stammered.

"It doesn't matter," said the man.

"But it does matter. You might think that I--I kept it."

"That's too absurd," he answered. "Are you interested in guns?"

"Guns?"

She stared at him. He appeared quite sane.

"I remember now I was thinking of guns when I went away," he explained.
"They're interesting things to think about."

"But don't you understand that I owe you a louis? I forgot all about it. If
my purse weren't empty I would repay you. Will you stay here till I can get
some money from my hotel--the Hotel de Paris?"

She spoke with some vehemence. How could the creature expect her to remain
in his debt? But the creature only passed his fingers through his
upstanding hair and smiled wanly.

"Please don't say anything more about it. It distresses me. The croupiers
don't return the stake, as a general rule, unless you ask for it. They
assume you want to back your luck. Perhaps it has won again. For goodness'
sake don't bother about it--and thank you very, very much."

He bowed politely and moved a step or two away. But Zora, struck by a
solution of the mystery which had not occurred to her, as one cannot grasp
all the ways and customs of gaming establishments in ten minutes, rushed
back to the other table. She arrived just in time to hear the croupier
asking whom the louis on seventeen belonged to. The number had turned up
again.

This time she brought the thirty-six louis to the stranger.

"Dear me," said he, taking the money. "It is very astonishing. But why did
you trouble?"

"Because I'm a woman of common sense, I suppose."

He looked at the coins in his hand as if they were shells which a child at
the seaside might have brought him, and then raised his eyes slowly to
hers.

"You are a very gracious lady." His glance and tone checked an impulse of
exasperation. She smiled.

"At any rate, I've won fifty-six pounds for you, and you ought to be
grateful."

He made a little gesture of acknowledgement. Had he been a more dashing
gentleman he might have expressed his gratitude for the mere privilege of
conversing with a gracious lady so beautiful. They had drifted from the
outskirts of the crowded table and found themselves in the thinner crowd of
saunterers. It was the height of the Monte Carlo season and the feathers
and diamonds and rouge and greedy eyes and ru