And alas! her fears were justified. When they got up into the Baccarat
Room they found L'Ami Fritz standing apart from the tables, his hands in
his pockets, staring abstractedly out of a dark window on to the lake.

"Well?" cried Madame Wachner sharply, "Well, Fritz?"

"I have had no luck!" he shook his head angrily. "It is all the fault of
that cursed system! If I had only begun at the right, the propitious
moment--as I should have done if you had not worried me and asked me to
go away--I should probably have made a great deal of money," he looked at
her disconsolately, deprecatingly.

Chester also looked at Madame Wachner. He admired the wife's
self-restraint. Her red face got a little redder. That was all.

"It cannot be helped," she said a trifle coldly, and in French. "I knew
how it would be, so I am not disappointed. Have you anything left? Have
you got the five louis I gave you at the beginning of the evening?"

Monsieur Wachner shook his head gloomily.

"Well then, it is about time we went home." She turned and led the way
out.




CHAPTER XXIII