hidden among the rushes that nourish round them.

He was handsome, and he knew that he was handsome; but he affected to
despise the beauty of his proud dark face, as he affected to despise
all the brightest and most beautiful things upon earth: and yet there
was a vagabondish kind of foppery in his costume that contrasted
sharply with the gentlemanly dandyism of the shabby gamester sitting at
the table. There was a distance of nearly half a century between the
style of the Regency dandy and the Quartier-Latin lion.

The girl watched the new-comer with sad earnest eyes as he walked
slowly towards the table, and a faint blush kindled in her cheeks as he
came nearer to the spot where she stood. He went by her presently,
carrying an atmosphere of stale tobacco with him as he went; and he
gave her a friendly nod as he passed, and a "Good morning, Diana;" but
that was all. The faint blush faded and left her very pale: but she
resumed her weary task with the card and the pin; and if she had
endured any disappointment within those few moments, it seemed to be a
kind of disappointment that she was accustomed to suffer.

The young man walked round the table till he came to the only vacant
chair, in which he seated himself, and after watching the game for a
few minutes, began to play. From the moment in which he dropped into
that vacant seat to the moment in which he rose to leave the table,
three hours afterwards, he never lifted his eyes from the green cloth,
or seemed to be conscious of anything that was going on around or about
him. The girl watched him furtively for some little time after he had
taken his place at the table; but the stony mask of the professed
gambler is a profitless object for a woman's earnest scrutiny.