While he scooped the two coins up, he did not see the croupier turn his
head and shoot a single glance to a fat, squat man in the corner of the
room, a glance to which the fat man responded with the slightest of nods
and smiles. He was the owner. And he was not particularly happy at the
thought of some hundred and fifty dollars being taken out of his treasury
by some chance stranger.

Terry did not see the glance, and before long he was incapable of seeing
anything saving the flash of the disk, the blur of the alternate colors
as they spun together. He paid no heed to the path of the sunlight as it
stretched along the floor under the window and told of a westering sun.
The first Terry knew of it he was standing in a warm pool of gold, but he
gave the sun at his feet no more than a casual glance. It was metallic
gold that he was fascinated by and the whims and fancies of that singular
wheel. Twice that afternoon his fortune had mounted above three thousand
dollars--once it mounted to an even six thousand. He had stopped to count
his winnings at this point, and on the verge of leaving decided to make
it an even ten thousand before he went away. And five minutes later he
was gambling with five hundred in his wallet.

When the sunlight grew yellow, other men began to enter the room. Terry
was still at his post. He did not see them. There was no human face in
the world for him except the colorless face of the croupier, and the
long, pale eyelashes that lifted now and then over greenish-orange eyes.
And Terry did not heed when he was shouldered by the growing crowd around
the wheel.

He only knew that other bets were being placed and that it was a
nuisance, for the croupier took much longer in paying debts and