"Unsuccessful in love!" she broke out, gleefully; "and the last piastre!
To-morrow we shall win a hundred, two hundred, Federigo!"

It was clearly the conviction of her heart; and she seized a mandolin
and began to dance to her own accompaniment, her eyes resting as she did
so upon Salvé with a peculiar expression.

"Quick, Federigo!--why not this evening?" she cried, breaking off
suddenly with a laugh, and throwing the mandolin from her on to the
sofa. "To-morrow his luck may be gone."

She seized her brother's hat, crushed it down upon his head, and pushed
him eagerly out of the door, going with him herself to open the wicket.

She came back then to Salvé, and as they sat _tête-à-tête_ in the
lamplit room with doors and windows thrown wide open, the moonlight
gleaming on the dark trees outside, and the night air perfumed with the
scent of flowers, she endeavoured to ingratiate herself with him by
pouring out his rum-and-water and by rolling his cigarettes, an art in
which it appeared from her laughter and gestures that she thought him
awkward. She was in a state of feverish excitement, and kept darting off
to the wicket and back again.

Salvé sat and smoked, and sipped his glass unconcernedly, whilst she
rocked herself backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair, with her head
thrown back, and her eyes steadily fixed upon him. He heard a sigh, and
she said in a low, ingratiating tone--

"I am afraid Federigo is unlucky."