really _are_: just took 'em for granted, as it were. We had lots of fun,
I admit that, honkin' about in my car. We only played cards once, and
that was in her apartment the last night before I left Paris, but that
one time Pedlow won fifteen thousand francs from me. When I told them my
plans, how I was goin' to motor down to Rome, she said _she_ would be in
Rome--and, I tell you, I was happy as a poodle-pup about it. Sneyd said
he might be in Rome along about then, and open-hearted ole Pedlow said
not to be surprised if _he_ turned up, too. Well, he did, almost to the
minute, and in the meantime she'd got _you_ hooked on, fine and tight."

"I don't understand you," Mellin lifted himself painfully on an elbow.
"I don't know what you're getting at, but it seems to me that you're
speaking disrespectfully of an angel that I've insulted, and I--"

"Now see here, Mellin, I'll tell you something." The boy's white face
showed sudden color and there was a catch in his voice. "I was--I've
been mighty near in _love_ with that woman! But I've had a kind of a
shock; I've got my common-sense back, and I'm _not_, any more. I don't
know exactly how much money I had, but it was between thirty-five and
thirty-eight thousand francs, and Sneyd won it all after we took off the
limit--over seven thousand dollars--at her table last night. Putting two
and two together, honestly it looks bad. It looks _mighty_ bad! Now, I'm
pretty well fixed, and yesterday I didn't care whether school kept or
not, but seven thousand dollars is real money to anybody! My old man
worked pretty hard for his first seven thousand, I guess, and"--he
gulped--"he'd think a lot of me for lettin' go of it the way I did last
night, _wouldn't_ he? You never _see_ things like this till the next
morning! And you remember that other woman sat where she could see every
hand _you_ drew, and the Countess--"