His eyes were brilliant under their absurd long lashes, and the smile he
gave her was the confident smile of a conqueror. Ann caught the infection
and began to play, staking where he staked, as he had suggested. Now and
then she ventured a little flutter of her own and tried some other number,
but usually her modest franc lay side by side with Tony's lordly five-franc
note.

Evidently Tony's bones had the right prophetic instinct, for after every
_coup_ the croupier pushed across to him a small pile of notes and silver.
Ann's own eyes were sparkling now. It was not that she really cared much
about her actual winnings. She was staking too lightly for that to matter.
But it entertained her enormously to win--to beat the bank as embodied in
the person of the croupier, who reminded her of nothing so much as of an
extremely active spider waiting in a corner of his web to pounce on an
adventurous fly. Each time the ball dropped into the number she had backed,
a little thrill of sheer, gleeful enjoyment ran through her.

Now and again, in spite of her absorption in her own and Tony's play, she
was conscious of a muscular brown hand on her right that reached out to
place a fresh stake on the table--never to gather up any winnings. Its
owner must be losing heavily. He was betting, not only on single numbers,
but putting the maximum on certain combinations and groups of numbers. And
every time the long-handled rake whisked his stakes away from him.

Ann glanced sideways to see who was the unlucky player, and once more she
met the same ironical grey eyes which she had last encountered over the top
of a newspaper. The man who was losing so persistently was her Englishman.

He did not seek to hold her gaze, but bent his own immediately upon the
table again. She stole another glance at him. He was very brown, but she