added to his bank. "Now you can't help yourself. We're partners."

The girl laughed, and the company at the table smiled, half in
sympathy, half with amusement. A chair was brought for her, and
she sat down behind Wethermill, her lips parted, her face joyous
with excitement. But all at once Wethermill's luck deserted him.
He renewed his bank three times, and had lost the greater part of
his winnings when he had dealt the cards through. He took a fourth
bank, and rose from that, too, a loser.

"That's enough, Celia," he said. "Let us go out into the garden;
it will be cooler there,"

"I have taken your good luck away," said the girl remorsefully.
Wethermill put his arm through hers.

"You'll have to take yourself away before you can do that," he
answered, and the couple walked together out of Ricardo's hearing.

Ricardo was left to wonder about Celia. She was just one of those
problems which made Aix-les-Bains so unfailingly attractive to
him. She dwelt in some street of Bohemia; so much was clear. The
frankness of her pleasure, of her excitement, and even of her
distress proved it. She passed from one to the other while you
could deal a pack of cards. She was at no pains to wear a mask.
Moreover, she was a young girl of nineteen or twenty, running
about those rooms alone, as unembarrassed as if she had been at
home. There was the free use, too, of Christian names. Certainly
she dwelt in Bohemia. But it seemed to Ricardo that she could pass
in any company and yet not be overpassed. She would look a little