He sat at the table with the indifferent look of the habitual
player upon his cleanly chiselled face. But it was plain that his
good fortune stayed at his elbow tonight, for opposite to him the
croupier was arranging with extraordinary deftness piles of bank-
notes in the order of their value. The bank was winning heavily.
Even as Ricardo looked Wethermill turned up "a natural," and the
croupier swept in the stakes from either side.
"Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Le jeu est fait?" the croupier cried,
all in a breath, and repeated the words. Wethermill waited with
his hand upon the wooden frame in which the cards were stacked. He
glanced round the table while the stakes were being laid upon the
cloth, and suddenly his face flashed from languor into interest.
Almost opposite to him a small, white-gloved hand holding a five-
louis note was thrust forward between the shoulders of two men
seated at the table. Wethermill leaned forward and shook his head
with a smile. With a gesture he refused the stake. But he was too
late. The fingers of the hand had opened, the note fluttered down
on to the cloth, the money was staked.
At once he leaned back in his chair.
"Il y a une suite," he said quietly. He relinquished the bank
rather than play against that five-louis note. The stakes were
taken up by their owners.
The croupier began to count Wethermill's winnings, and Ricardo,
curious to know whose small, delicately gloved hand it was which
had brought the game to so abrupt a termination, leaned forward.
He recognised the young girl in the white satin dress and the big
black hat whose nerves had got the better of her a few minutes
since in the garden. He saw her now clearly, and thought her of an
entrancing loveliness. She was moderately tall, fair of skin, with
a fresh colouring upon her cheeks which she owed to nothing but
her youth. Her hair was of a light brown with a sheen upon it, her
forehead broad, her eyes dark and wonderfully clear. But there was
something more than her beauty to attract him. He had a strong
belief that somewhere, some while ago, he had already seen her.
And this belief grew and haunted him. He was still vaguely
puzzling his brains to fix the place when the croupier finished
his reckoning.
"There are two thousand louis in the bank," he cried. "Who will
take on the bank for two thousand louis?"
No one, however, was willing. A fresh bank was put up for sale,
and Wethermill, still sitting in the dealer's chair, bought it. He
spoke at once to an attendant, and the man slipped round the
table, and, forcing his way through the crowd, carried a message
to the girl in the black hat. She looked towards Wethermill and
smiled; and the smile made her face a miracle of tenderness. Then
she disappeared, and in a few moments Ricardo saw a way open in
the throng behind the banker, and she appeared again only a yard
or two away, just behind Wethermill. He turned, and taking her
hand into his, shook it chidingly.