some traces of the spell of innocence yet hung about his meagre,
delicately-shaped form, and his scanty fair hair in its natural curls.

He looked only about twenty-five years of age, and any trace of vice
in his face seemed to be there by accident. A young constitution still
resisted the inroads of lubricity. Darkness and light, annihilation
and existence, seemed to struggle in him, with effects of mingled
beauty and terror. There he stood like some erring angel that has lost
his radiance; and these emeritus-professors of vice and shame were
ready to bid the novice depart, even as some toothless crone might be
seized with pity for a beautiful girl who offers herself up to infamy.

The young man went straight up to the table, and, as he stood there,
flung down a piece of gold which he held in his hand, without
deliberation. It rolled on to the Black; then, as strong natures can,
he looked calmly, if anxiously, at the croupier, as if he held useless
subterfuges in scorn.

The interest this coup awakened was so great that the old gamesters
laid nothing upon it; only the Italian, inspired by a gambler's
enthusiasm, smiled suddenly at some thought, and punted his heap of
coin against the stranger's stake.

The banker forgot to pronounce the phrases that use and wont have
reduced to an inarticulate cry--"Make your game. . . . The game is
made. . . . Bets are closed." The croupier spread out the cards, and
seemed to wish luck to the newcomer, indifferent as he was to the
losses or gains of those who took part in these sombre pleasures.
Every bystander thought he saw a drama, the closing scene of a noble
life, in the fortunes of that bit of gold; and eagerly fixed his eyes